climate change

Xiaoli Dong is putting biological soil crust on the climate change research map, a project for which she received UC Davis’ single Early Career Faculty Award for Creativity and Innovation for 2023.

The university gives one or two of the $40,000 awards annually, funded by an endowment set up by anonymous donors.

Bernardo “Bernie” Bastien-Olvera, a recent Ph.D. graduate from the Geography Graduate Group at UC Davis, is this year’s recipient of the Kinsella Memorial Prize for his doctoral research on the effects of climate-driven impacts on global ecosystems and the influence on human well-being.

An aspiring astrobiologist has been awarded a Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, the nation’s leading scholarship for undergraduates pursuing research in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering.

University of California, Davis, scientists are teaming up with UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco researchers on a $70-million donor-funded initiative that aims in part to cut climate change-causing emissions from cattle by using the genome-editing tool CRISPR on microbes in the cows’ gut.

The cooling shade of UC Davis’ mature, leafy trees impressed Nurjannah Wiryadimejo enough to help the now-graduating senior choose to become an Aggie.

“When I first came to Davis, what struck me was how beautiful the cork oaks are. I’d never seen such beautiful tree-lined streets like the ones by the Memorial Union,” she said. 

“But now I’ve realized that a lot of the trees on campus aren’t well suited for the future climate, when there will be more heat and extreme weather events,” said the environmental science and management major. 

Fungal pathogens that cause die-back in grape, avocado, citrus, nut and other crops has found a new host and is infecting conifer trees causing Pine Ghost Canker in urban forest areas of Southern California.

The canker can be deadly to trees.

Exposing wine grapes to sunlight was the key to making a good quality cabernet. But even the toughest grapes may not withstand the extreme heat that comes with climate change. Too much heat, like California has experienced with recent heat waves, can lead to jarringly jam-like wines that are high in alcohol and sugar and lacking in acidity.

UC Davis polar ecologist Eric Post has kept a close eye on Arctic Greenland for nearly 30 years, documenting changes to the warming landscape and the plants and animals who call it home. 

In the classroom environment, he’s seen climate change create a different shift among students — one in which climate anxiety is an unavoidable and increasingly frequent reality. 

Levi Lewis, one of Peter Moyle’s many former undergraduate students, now runs the Otolith Geochemistry and Fish Ecology Laboratory at UC Davis. His previous research has taken him to wetlands, seagrass beds and coral reefs around the world.

Peter Moyle is widely considered the “godfather of California fish biology.” The UC Davis professor emeritus has been conducting native fish surveys here for more than 50 years. He also played a major role in restoring Yolo County’s beloved local stream, Putah Creek.