Rangelands

Navigating natural resource management rules and regulations in California can be daunting for private forest landowners.

They're small, about 1 mm long or less, with characteristic fringed wings. They fly, but not well. But thrips do pack a powerful punch. A major pest of many agricultural crops, including lettuce, they damage plants by (1) sucking their juices and (2) transmitting viruses.

How do you manage thrips in lettuce production? Research entomologist Daniel Hasegawa of the Crop Improvement and Protection Research Unit, Agricultural Research Service, U. S.

Robbin Thorp would have been proud of what happened on Thursday, Jan. 14. When the UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology, a global authority on bumble bees, died June 7, 2019 at age 85, scientists found a way to memorialize him and what he loved.

Agricultural Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger, coordinator of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's seminars, has announced the list of the virtual seminars for the winter quarter. All seminars will be held on Wednesdays at 4:10 PM (PST).

A UC Davis postdoctoral researcher who studied with global bumble bee authority Robbin Thorp is fittingly the winner of the Bohart Museum of Entomology's inaugural Robbin Thorp Memorial First-Bumble-Bee-of-the-Year Contest.

The UC Davis Insect Ecology Group has named Arnold Menke's publication on "The Ammophila of North and Central America (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae)" as one of the best papers of 2020.

They're out there! Yes, after a l-o-n-g, cold, hard winter, bumble bees are emerging. At least in Solano County. At 11:20 a.m. today (Wednesday, Jan. 13), we spotted a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging on oxalis near downtown Benicia.

When you "make a mountain out of a molehill," you're exaggerating the severity of the situation. But if you're an ant, you can make little mounds that might appear--at least to other ants--like mountains.

Reposted from the UCANR News In 2020, 9,000 fires scorched more than 4 million acres of California, a record-breaking year, reported Alejandra Borunda in National Geographic.