A male orchid bee zips around the rainforest, a flash of iridescent green against an equally emerald background. The bee stops at various flowers, fungi and dead trees, collecting fragrant particles and storing them in pockets in its hind legs. Then, it perches on a tree trunk. But the bee doesn’t rest. Instead, it flitters about, using its wings to disperse a bouquet of perfumes into the air.

The aromatic efforts are all for the sake of attracting a mate.  

There are worlds inside Megan Ma’s journal. On one page, a cartoon girl teeters through a rocky field filled with tall mushrooms. On another, a study-stressed cow sits at a desk staring at a laptop marked “UCD.” And on another, droplets of blue and purple watercolors have morphed into bunny-like avatars.

A female Atlantic molly (Poecilia mexicana) reproduced with a male Sailfin molly (Poecilia latipinna), producing a unique fish hybrid called the Amazon molly (Poecilia formosa). In many cases, nature safeguards hybrids through sterility. But in the case of the Amazon molly, something extraordinary happened.

November 12, 2019

"Meet the scientist who's been counting California butterflies for 47 years and has no plans to stop," reads the headline for a profile article about Distinguished Professor Art Shapiro, of the Department of Evolution and Ecology and the Center for Population Biology. The piece was published today in the Los Angeles Times.   

October 28, 2019

Professors Jonathan Eisen and Veronica Martínez-Cerdeño were awarded the 2019 ADVANCE Scholar Award for their work to improve gender equity in STEM through their teaching, research and service in addition to encouraging research, leadership, and outreach to underserved communities and/or mentorship of underrepresented students.

November 05, 2019

Posted by Tanya Perez

Perhaps the best way to sum up Professor Jonathan Eisen’s philosophy is to note his belief that “It is important to fix that which is easily fixable.” 

Eisen, who has appointments in the Genome Center, the department of evolution and ecology, and the department of medical microbiology and immunology, “uses his powers of national influence for good,” according to his Aggie Hero nominator. 

Doctoral candidate Philipp Brand, Population Biology Graduate Group, and his colleagues at the University of California, Davis, had just finished compiling the genome, or complete set of genetic material of the firebrat — a tiny wingless, nocturnal insect found throughout much of the world — when something surprised him.  

The snipefish, an ocean-dwelling relative of the seahorse, has a very long, skinny snout ending in a tiny mouth. A recent study by UC Davis graduate student Sarah Longo shows that snipefish feed with an elastic-boosted head flick at almost unprecedented speed.

“At as little as two milliseconds, it’s among the fastest feeding events ever recorded for fish,” said Longo, now a postdoctoral researcher at Duke University.

About 375 million years ago, the state of Iowa lay submerged beneath an ocean. Marine creatures skittered, crawled and swam through these waters.

University of California, Davis, Professor Tim Caro and Martin How of the University of Bristol led a series of new experiments to better understand how stripes manipulate the behavior of biting flies as they attempt to come in to land on zebras.  Read the details her