Was California’s record-breaking 2013-2015 drought a window into the future?
Climate change is dramatically altering the San Francisco Bay Area's ecosystems and raising profound questions among conservationists about how to help species best adapt to new conditions.
In An Unusual Year for Upwelling, Research Cruise Keeps an Eye on Marine Sanctuaries’ Rich Life
For the past decade, the Applied California Current Ecosystem Studies expedition has monitored the ocean waters just west of the Bay Area. Recently, researchers took the boat in search of krill, the base of California’s marine life.
Letter from the Publisher: California’s Water Year
We can’t control the rain. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. Bay Nature Publisher David Loeb on California’s drought.
High Temperatures Threaten Sacramento River’s Fall-Run King Salmon
The early fall king salmon spawning run on the Sacramento River is taking place between Red Bluff and Redding, but prolonged drought has led to reduced flows from Lake Shasta and high water temperatures downriver, which could deal many egg nests a death blow.
TBC3: Wrestling Climate Change to the Ground
It’s not “news” to Bay Nature readers that climate change is in the process of giving a serious thwack to living systems. But what’s less well understood is how plants and animals and the habitats they inhabit are moving—and being altered—in response to changing temperature and precipitation patterns.
It’s Fun! It’s Science! It’s a Bioblitz!
On the last weekend of March, 9,000 people armed with binoculars, butterfly nets, cameras, and smartphones, spread out over an archipelago of national park lands from Point Reyes in Marin County to Mori Point on the San Mateo coast. Their … Read more
Impressionism, Pointillism, Statistical Processing: Finding Truths in the Patterns of Nature
The beauty of science is that it really does search for truth. It is easy to follow the tracks and trails of one or several of nature’s patterns and yet be completely lost as to the whole picture.
The Jumbo Squid Have Left California. Or Have They?
Humboldt Squid have moved into and out of California, sometimes for years at a time, for centuries. Now an El Niño approaches the Pacific Coast, and squid researchers are waiting.
Fire Followers Arrive, with Scientists Right Behind
An expert in rare plants, Heath Bartosh is especially interested in “fire followers,” plants whose seeds stay buried in the ground until heat or smoke stimulates germination. These annuals flourish for one to three years. And then they’re gone—until the next fire.
The Fish We Never Knew
The Galapagos damselfish exists only in the specimens collection at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, the victim of an unusually strong El Nino. Thoughts on the fish, and its lessons in a changing world.