Rangelands

Stakeholders from across disciplines and institutions offer recommendations to ensure safe, reliable water supply amid a growing wildfire threat It's intuitive that wildfires can affect ecosystems, harm wildlife and contaminate streams and rivers.

Talk about a full schedule! Nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, not only excels at research, teaching and public service but he serves as the coordinator of the department's weekly seminars for the 2021-22 academic year.

Topics for the winter quarter seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology range from the alfalfa weevil to the yellow fever mosquito. The seminar series will take place on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall beginning Jan. 5 and continuing through March 9.

Over the last ten years or so, I've had the opportunity to help teach farm and ranch business planning courses (first, as a collaborating producer; more recently, as an extension advisor).

Spotted: A lady beetle (aka ladybug) feasting on aphids in her winter wonderland. It dines uninterrupted until it sees the shadow of what could be a predator. Swoosh! It quickly slips beneath a strawberry leaf and remains there, hidden and silent until the photographer leaves.

When California experiences drought due to a lack of rain and snow and the reservoirs don't fill up, people pump water out of the ground to meet their needs.

If honey bees fascinate you, you might want to take the first step toward becoming affiliated with the UC Davis-based California Master Beekeeper Program (CAMBP) by applying online to become an apprentice assistant. Applications close Jan. 30.

There they were. Together. The scene: A honeybee (Apis mellifera) and a bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii) nectaring on a purple coneflower (Echinacea purpurea) in a UC Davis bee garden. If you've observed honeybees and wild bees foraging in your garden, you've probably wanted to compare them.

Honeybees are celebrated as effective plant pollinators, but just how effective are they? Newly published UC Davis research in the American Journal of Botany yields some surprising results.

The systemic insecticide imidacloprid, belonging to a class of chemicals called the neonicotinoids or "neonics," is commonly used to control insects that damage agricultural crops.