Posts Tagged: laboratory

Fighting drought with soil

A team of University of California scientists recently received a $1.69 million grant to use several UC agricultural research stations to study an often overlooked tool to fight the drought: soil.

The team, led by Samantha Ying, an assistant professor of environmental sciences at UC Riverside, received the grant from the University of California Office of the President.

The funding will allow for the establishment of the University of California Consortium for Drought and Carbon Management (UC DroCaM), which will design management strategies based on understanding soil carbon, the soil microbiome and their impact on water dynamics in soil.

The researchers will conduct field and lab research on microbiological, biophysical, and geochemical mechanisms controlling soil formation and stability under different row crops (tomatoes, alfalfa, wheat), farming practices (carbon inputs and rotations) and irrigation methods (furrow and flood, microirrigation).

Information on mechanisms will be integrated into a regionally-scalable predictive model to describe soil carbon dynamics and estimate the response of agricultural systems to drought.

Field research will initially be conducted at three UC Research and Extension Centers (Kearney, West Side and Desert) the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility near UC Davis.

Recommendations will then be made for broader monitoring and field experiments throughout the state based on input gained from local growers and citizens at workshops at the agricultural research stations. Ultimately, the hope is to expand and involve all nine research and extension centers from the Oregon border to the Mexican border.

“Having agricultural research stations throughout the state is a huge part of this project,” Ying said. “It is going to help us create one of the best research centers in the country focused on soil and drought.”

There is also a public engagement component. Citizens will be recruited to participate in workshops to learn how to monitor and sample their local soils. Information will then be imputed into an online soils database that will help create a map of the biodiversity of agricultural soils in California.

Ying's collaborators are: Kate Scow and Sanjai Parihk (UC Davis); Eoin Brodie and Margaret Torn (UC Berkeley); Asmeret Berhe and Teamrat Ghezzehei (UC Merced); and Peter Nico and William Riley (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory).

The grant is one of four awards totaling more than $4.8 million from University of California President Janet Napolitano's President's Research Catalyst Awards.

Tips for cattle health and safety during dry times

Long before Governor Brown declared an official drought for the state, many of California's ranchers knew this would be a tough year. Drought can increase the risks of animal poisonings and nutritional imbalances, and necessitate additional vigilance to assure cattle health and productivity. Veterinary toxicologists Robert H. Poppenga and Birgit Puschner, with the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, provide this critical information to dairy and beef producers to keep their livestock healthy during the drought. Key threats to cattle include:

Water quality — Water is the most critical factor in the diet of food animals. When cattle don't drink enough clean and safe water every day, feed intake and productivity declines. Drought conditions can potentially affect all sources of water, including groundwater, but surface waters are especially vulnerable. It is important to frequently monitor water quality, especially as quantity becomes more limited, and test for basic water quality parameters such as total dissolved solids, sodium, sulfates, and nitrates/nitrites. Blooms of blue-green algae in water are also an issue. These cyanobacteria can produce toxins that can affect the liver and nervous system. Depending on the specific toxin and amount ingested, animals may die suddenly, or suffer from weakness, staggering, or photosensitization. 

Feed quality and nutritional deficiencies — Drought conditions frequently result in the need to feed poor quality forages or to switch to alternative feed sources. Both can affect animal nutrition and increase the risk for intoxications. Use of poor quality forages can cause or exacerbate deficiencies of important minerals such as selenium, copper, and phosphorus and vitamins such as vitamins A and E. In addition, drought affected forages are often deficient in energy and protein. Even in non-drought years, deficiencies in selenium and copper are common in California cattle, particularly beef cattle. Copper deficiency causes reduced production, diarrhea, decreased resistance to infectious agents and parasites, poor vaccine response, loss of bone strength in calves, weakness and wobbling in neonates, reproductive failure, and sudden death of adult animals. Selenium deficiency also results in less resistance to infectious agents and parasites, and causes white muscle disease of skeletal and heart muscle resulting in stiff gaits, slow movement, heart damage and weak neonates. Primary vitamin A deficiency occurs in beef cattle on dry range pasture during periods of drought. Clinical signs include night blindness, dry eye, retarded growth rate, reproductive failures, and increased mortality. Maternal deficiency of vitamin A can cause abortions, stillbirths, or calves born alive but blind and weak that die within 1 to 3 days. Cows should be given an injection of vitamin A (and D) about 30 days prior to calving and calves should be given a vitamin A injection at birth.

Increased incidence of plant poisonings — Cattle will seek out and consume plants that they would not otherwise find palatable during drought conditions. Nitrate poisoning is one of the most common plant associated intoxications diagnosed by the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory. The potential for nitrate poisoning to occur is increased when livestock water sources also contain elevated concentrations. The first sign of nitrate poisoning is often the sudden and unexplained deaths of one or more animals. Other clinical signs include drowsiness, weakness, muscle tremors, increased heart and respiratory rates, staggering, and recumbency. Signs can develop with several hours of ingesting a toxic amount. Nitrate concentrations can be easily and cheaply determined from samples submitted to a veterinary diagnostic laboratory for testing. 

During periods of drought, cattle producers should be especially careful about the quality of feed and water available for their animals. Sick animals should be tested for various nutritional deficiencies and dead animals can undergo necropsies to determine cause of death so that other animals in the herd can be treated appropriately. Additional information and testing is available at the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System. For laboratory location and contact info, visit www.cahfs.ucdavis.edu. A longer, more detailed version of these tips may be found here.

Robert H. Poppenga and Birgit Puschner, veterinary toxicologists with the California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, contributed to this article. 

 

Institute ushers in new era of marine sciences

The new Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute at UC Davis will bring a new undergraduate program in marine sciences, a spruced-up Bodega Marine Laboratory, and enhanced opportunities for collaboration and education among marine scientists spread across UC Davis.

From the laboratories at the university’s main campus near the state’s political center of Sacramento to the shores of Bodega Bay on California’s north coast, a diverse group of marine scientists and policymakers at UC Davis has been studying the most critical issues affecting oceans, and the creatures and people who depend on them. Now, the Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute will begin to connect, strengthen, and leverage those efforts.

UC Davis evolution and ecology professor Rick Grosberg (above) is the institute’s founding director.

“I hope to take the incredible expertise on our main campus and at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory to assemble a comprehensive, interdisciplinary program in marine science,” said Grosberg. “One of our goals is to pull together an exceptionally strong and diverse group of faculty and really build the health of the coastal ocean.”

The institute’s work primarily will focus on coastal Northern California — from north of Monterey to the California-Oregon border.

Ten faculty currently reside at Bodega Marine Laboratory, while 69 campus faculty consider themselves marine scientists. By providing a collaborative framework, the institute aims to enhance opportunities for research, teaching, outreach and stakeholder engagement surrounding marine sciences.

The Coastal and Marine Sciences Institute features four key components, expected to be rolled out over the next five years:

• Research enterprises that use novel combinations of existing expertise at UC Davis in the physical, biological and social sciences to address issues affecting coastal and ocean environments.
• New degree programs. CMSI plans to introduce a highly interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in marine sciences, expected to launch in 2014. New graduate and professional training programs in marine sciences are also being developed.
• The Bodega Learning Center aims to educate and engage the public — from “K to gray” — about marine and coastal issues. It will be located at Bodega Marine Laboratory, with plans to further develop visitor exhibits and programs for schools, professional training and lifelong learning throughout Northern California. 
• The Center for Coastal Ocean Issues will provide a forum for engaging with stakeholders, from the beginning, to identify and address challenges related to human, natural and economic coastal health. This includes bringing together scientists, government agencies, policymakers, ocean industries and the public.

The UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory sits amid the Bodega Marine Reserve about 100 miles west from the UC Davis campus and is ideally located for studying coastal health and human impacts that could affect it. The facility is in one of the world’s four major upwelling areas, which are highly productive — yielding 20 percent of global fish production while occupying less than 1 percent of the ocean surface area. BML is also near one of the most densely populated regions of the state — the San Francisco Bay area — where coastlines are increasingly impacted by human activities. 

The laboratory was founded in 1960 by UC Berkeley and was transferred to UC Davis in 1983. Recent work includes research on ocean acidification and climate change, invasive species, fisheries management, the effects of oil spills on marine life, and a program to bring back the endangered white abalone from the brink of extinction.

Bodega Marine Lab keeps watch on ocean temperatures

Ocean waters are warming, sea level is rising, seawater is becoming more acidic, and shoreline erosion is intensifying. The world’s oceans are reacting to increased carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

“The physical and chemical environment of the ocean is changing with the climate,” said John Largier of the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory. “This affects ecosystems — like tidal marshes and coral reefs that protect us from storms and flooding.”

The ocean brings stability to the earth’s climate. It heats up and cools down more slowly than the land and the air. With climate change, the ocean absorbs excess heat trapped in the earth’s system by the increased concentration of gases in the atmosphere.

As seawater warms, it expands. The increase in the ocean’s heat content has contributed to one of the most visible effects of global warming — rising sea level. Thermal expansion, along with melting polar ice caps and glaciers, has led to global sea level rise of more than seven inches over the last century.

“When the ocean begins to warm up, then you know that the earth’s climate is changing,” said Largier, a professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy. “Even if we stop putting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere right now, the ocean has warmed up, and it will take centuries for it to cool down. People don’t realize that we’ve already made a long-term commitment to climate change.”

At the Bodega Marine Lab, Largier and other scientists are studying the regional impacts of climate change on the waters off California, which include an increase in coastal upwelling. Driven by winds, upwelling pulls cold water and nutrients from the ocean depths to the surface along the shore and contributes to the “marine layer,” the blanket of cool moist air that moderates California temperatures. Largier’s research shows a trend toward stronger winds and an increase in upwelling since 1982, leading to cooler waters off central and northern California.

“Worldwide, the ocean’s surface water is getting warmer, but in California, the ocean is getting colder near shore,” said Largier. “This is intriguing because it shows that climate change is not going to have the same effect everywhere. There will be regional differences.”

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This article was condensed slightly from UC Davis “CA&ES Outlook” magazine. Read the full article on page 7.

Read John Largier's scientific advisory group report on how changes in the ocean might affect two valuable marine sanctuaries off the northern California coast: "Climate Change Impacts: Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries"

John Largier along the northern California coast. (Photo: Jennifer Sauter/UC Davis)

Perils of illegal marijuana crops

Rodenticides used on illegal marijuana farms have already been shown to pose serious harm to the fisher—a cat-sized carnivore found in forests across Canada and four regions in the U.S. (Previous news article.)

Mourad Gabriel, a doctoral candidate with the Veterinary Genetics Laboratory at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, provides a more comprehensive look at the situation in the recent issue of The Wildlife Professional, put out by The Wildlife Society. (Article here.)

New information looks at risks to other species and to the ecologists and biologists conducting wildlife research on community and public lands where more of these crops are being cultivated.

Highlights include: 

• Newly documented fisher mortalities (necropsies done at UC Davis’ California Animal Health and Food Safety Laboratory System)
  
  
• New data documenting just a glimpse of potential environmental degradation possibly occurring on our public lands
  
  
• First mention of toxicants like carbamates and organochlorides (DDT etc...) that are being found in California grow sites
  
  
• Provides readers with information on how some of these toxicants are placed at grow sites to maliciously poison wildlife
  
  
• New info and discussion points of "what are" the potential effects of ...such as damming water courses, putting toxic slurry of chemicals in dammed creeks, cutting riparian zones, human feces (affects salmon and many other species)
  
  
• First-hand accounts of ecologists and biologists conducting wildlife research being shot at, chased and threatened
  
  
• Quantifies the loss of project area access, and data from fisher projects in California public lands

There is also a link to a video that offers a first account visual representation of what a fisher looks like, the unfortunate visual effects of toxicosis and the realistic outcome to wildlife from these illicit activities on tribal and public lands.

For more information, contact Mourad Gabriel, mwgabriel@ucdavis.edu or Trina Wood, tjwood@ucdavis.edu 

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