Environment

Hurricanes Create Powerful Changes Deep in the Ocean, Study Reveals

June 6, 2025

Hurricane Bud left some surprising changes in its wake, UC Merced researchers found.

With careful planning and a little luck, researchers found a surprising upside to hurricanes after a Category 4 storm disrupted their expedition off the coast of Mexico. The team was able to sample the ocean right after the storm passed and found that the storms churn the ocean so powerfully and...

Lengthy Study Shows Value of Soil Health and Forest Restoration after Damaging Events

A nine-year experiment by a UC Merced Department of Life and Environmental Sciences professor and his colleagues is illuminating the importance of soil carbon in maintaining healthy and functioning...

Professor Sora Kim examines a fossilized shark's tooth.

One Key to Climate Change Could Be Stuck in a 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...

Vicky Espinoza presents her story at a recent symposium.

Grad Student Represents Valley at Global Food Security Symposium

Graduate student Vicky Espinoza shared the plight of some San Joaquin Valley families with a wide audience this spring in her role as a Next Generation delegate to this year’s Chicago Council...

A picture of a soil chronosequence in Hawaii shows yellow sulfur-rich soil that has built up over millions of years.

UC Merced Researchers Help Uncover Soil Biodiversity

A rigorous, first-of-its-kind global study provides new insights into the natural history of soil biodiversity and shows that changes in soil pH during soil development is a major driver of most of...

A child is surrounded by air pollution from traffic.

Air Pollution Impacts Childhood Development, New Study Shows

Children who live near major roads are at higher risk for developmental delays because of traffic-related pollutants. That’s the major finding of a new study authored by UC Merced...

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 (...

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...

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...

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...

Research