The Winnemem Wintu tribe’s connection to the winter-run chinook salmon (known as Nur by the tribe) runs deep. The Nur are a part of the creation stories told for generations.
“When we first bubbled out of our sacred spring on Mt. Shasta at the time of creation, we were helpless and unable to speak. It was salmon, the Nur, who took pity on us humans and gave us their voice. In return, we promised to always speak for them.” – Winnemem Wintu Spiritual and Cultural Belief.
From ducks and cranes to giant garter snakes and salmon, flooded rice fields in California’s Central Valley offer important — often vital — habitat to many wildlife species. Yet uncertainties around crop markets, water and climate can prompt some growers to fallow rice fields or change their management practices.
Will today’s rice acreage under current practices be enough to meet key species’ needs? If not, how much rice is needed? Where should it be planted? And what management practices offer the greatest benefit for species of concern?
The National Science Foundation has awarded Center for Watershed Sciences Senior Researcher Jonathan Walter and colleagues at the University of Wyoming and New Mexico State University new funding to...
“No one has done the strontium otolith work with any dam removal project anywhere. We’re chasing diversity. This project is the first to look at this question of life history diversity related to dam removal. It will tell us where the fish go, the habitats that they use, and when they leave.” – Robert Lusardi, aquatic ecologist, Center for Watershed Sciences, UC Davis
Karrigan Börk, Associate Director at the Center for Watershed Sciences and acting professor of law at UC Davis' School of Law, has been awarded the Morrison Prize for his 2023 legal paper on water extraction rights. The $10,000 Morrison Prize is a distinguished honor; it is awarded annually to the author of the most influential academic legal article on environmental sustainability pu
Dave Ayers discusses the state of science and future directions in linking wetland restoration design with functional fish habitat at the Delta-Suisun Tidal Wetland Restoration Symposium.
Using five years of post-treatment data on farm-level water use, we find that water conservation doubles between the first and fifth year of the tax. – Bruno et al. 2023
New research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has uncovered how kelp forests shape beach food webs and ecosystem dynamics. The study was recently published by Jonathan Walter (CWS Senior Researcher, lead author), Kyle A. Emery, Jenifer E. Dugan, David M. Hubbard, Tom W. Bell, Lawrence W. Sheppard, Vadim A. Karatayev, Kyle C. Cavanaugh, Daniel C. Reuman, and Max C. N. Castorani.
Fall 2023Who – Anyone is welcome to attend. What – CWS Fall 2023 Seminar Series When – Mondays, 3:30-4:30 pm & social afterward Where – Center for Watershed Sciences Conference Room, UC Davis, CA
New research from The Complete Marsh Project reveals insights into phytoplankton rates in Suisun Marsh and serves as a useful tool to explore landscape-level variation in production and losses of phytoplankton.
Fish in the San Francisco Bay are currently under threat from harmful algal blooms known as red tides, which release toxins that can be fatal to aquatic life. Several factors, like high temperatures and low water flow in the Bay-Delta region, can trigger the occurrence of red tides.
Hot off the press! Check out the latest UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences Open-Access publication by Andrew Rypel, revealing how ecosystem size affects community assembly via environmental stability, hydrology, and life-history filtering. A must-read for conservationists and ecologists!
The Center for Watershed Sciences is excited to share a newly funded Synthesis Incubator project to synthesize water temperature and wildfire data from rivers across the western United States to characterize spatiotemporal patterns of riverine heatwaves and how they might be affected by wildfire.
The Center for Watershed Sciences is excited to share a new funded Synthesis Incubator project to construct the first quantitative regional comparison of wetland fish communities throughout the San Francisco Estuary.
The Center for Watershed Sciences is excited to share a new funded Synthesis Incubator project to initiate development of an individual-based model of green sturgeon in central California that can be used to simulate effects of changing climate and water management on population dynamics, habitat use, and movement.
