California grape growers in coastal areas can use less water during times of drought and cut irrigation levels without affecting crop yields or quality, according to a new

Dams poorly mimic the temperature patterns California streams require to support the state’s native salmon and trout — more than three-quarters of which risk extinction. Bold actions are needed to reverse extinction trends and protect cold-water streams that are resilient to climate warming, according to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE by the University of California, Davis. 

Even pathogens have their limits. When it gets too hot or too dry, some pathogens — like many living things — search for cooler, wetter and more hospitable climes. Ecologists have questioned if a warming, drying climate is connected to the spread of plant disease, but detecting a climate change fingerprint has been elusive.  

A study from the University of California, Davis, provides some of the first evidence that climate change and drought are shifting the range of infectious disease in forests suffering from white pine blister rust disease.

Da Yang, assistant professor of atmospheric sciences, is gearing up to launch a new research project on the buoyancy effect of water vapor and climate change. Yang received an $810,000 CAREER Award grant from the National Science Foundation, which presents its most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have demonstrated the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education.

From art to religion to land use, much of what is deemed valuable in the United States was shaped centuries ago by the white male perspective. Fish, it turns out, are no exception.

Warren Winiarski knows how to make beautiful wine and wants to help his beloved Napa Valley continue to do so for years to come. The legendary founder and former winemaker of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars fame is funding an ambitious research project to update and expand the globally recognized Winkler Index and give the industry new tools to cope with climate change.

Beth Forrestel, an assistant professor and plant biologist in the Department of Viticulture and Enology, leads the project to modernize the Winkler Index that growers used for decades to match suitable wine grape varieties with different regions of the state. Even though smoke, wildfires and pandemic-induced restrictions presented some formidable obstacles to field research in 2020, the initial year of the study, Forrestel reports progress by those involved with the work.

Lichen communities may take decades — and in some cases up to a century — to fully return to chaparral ecosystems after wildfire, finds a study from the University of California, Davis, and Stanford University. 

The study, published today in the journal Diversity and Distributions, is the most comprehensive to date of long-term lichen recolonization after fire. 

Sheep will graze the University of California, Davis, Campus Gateway on Old Davis Road this week in an academic experiment to see if sheep can eat weeds and grass, fertilize and control pests as well as or better than using conventional landscaping methods.

Throughout the history of the West, human actions have often rushed the desert — and their actions backfired. In the 1920s, the Colorado River Compact notoriously overallocated water still used today by several Western states because water measurements were taken during a wet period.