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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

Climate Change

One Key to Climate Change Could Be Stuck in a Shark’s Tooth

May 2, 2019

Professor Sora Kim examines a fossilized shark's tooth.
Most people wouldn’t think sharks can teach researchers about the planet’s distant past and its more immediate future. UC Merced paleoecologist Professor Sora Kim isn’t most people. There’s a connection between data in fossilized shark teeth and climate change, and...
Ph.D. students Craig Ennis and Vicky Espinoza visited Sacramento with Vice Provost and Graduate Dean Marjorie Zatz to speak with lawmakers about the contribution of graduate research to California's development.

Graduate Students Make a Case for Research at Capitol

Two UC Merced Ph.D. students took to the State Capitol yesterday with representatives from the other UC campuses to advocate for the importance of the research being done across California. Craig Ennis and Vicky Espinoza were accompanied by Vice...
Waterbirds take flight over a large wetland area along the Pacific Flyway.

Climate Change is Negatively Affecting Waterbirds in the American West

Climate change is having a profound effect on the millions of migrating birds that rely on annual stops along the Pacific Flyway as they head from Alaska to Patagonia each year. They are finding less food, saltier water and fewer places to breed and...
Kimber Moreland with the accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) instrument. Photo courtesy of Lawrence Livermore National Lab: LLNL-PHOTO-769483.

Three Environmental Systems Graduate Students Receive Department of Energy Fellowships

Under the leadership of Professors Asmeret Berhe and Stephen Hart, three UC Merced Environmental Systems (ES) graduate students have been awarded fellowships from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to advance their doctoral theses. The DOE...
Leaf-cutter ants in the tropical rain forest of Costa Rica carry cut leaves back to their colony.

Study: Tiny ‘Ecosystem Engineers’ Are an Overlooked Source of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

It’s estimated that a leaf-cutter ant colony can strip an average tree of its foliage in a day, and that more than 17 percent of leaf production by plants surrounding a colony goes straight into their giant, fungus-growing nests. It’s no...

Scientists Simulate Forest, Fire Dynamics to Understand Area Burn of Future Wildfires

Climate change and wildfire make a combustible mix with deadly and costly consequences. Scientists have been trying to understand that link for many years, studying the effects of climate and wildfire interactions in the Sierra Nevada. UC Merced...

New Project to Build Climate Resilience through Improved Land Management

A $4.6 million grant to UCs Merced and Irvine will help researchers develop new tools and methods for better managing the state’s forests, shrub lands and grasslands. The Innovation Center for Advancing Ecosystem Climate Solutions, a three-year...

Researchers Assess Western Forests’ Ability to Survive Next Drought

UC Merced researchers have evidence that California’s forests are especially vulnerable to multi-year droughts because their health depends on water stored several feet below ground. “Each year our forests, grasslands and shrublands depend...

Innovative Partnership Aims to Restore Sierra Nevada Forest Health

The French Meadows Forest Restoration Project, an innovative collaboration approved this week, aligns the expertise of the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at UC Merced, the U.S. Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and other agencies and groups to...

Environmental Engineers Devising Plan to Save Humanity

The Earth is changing, and humans face major challenges if they hope to adapt, survive and preserve any semblance of the world as it is now. Humans will need to create sustainable food, water and energy supplies; curb climate change; eliminate...

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