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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 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.
A few years ago the State Coastal Conservancy went looking for something new: habitat restoration that would also address sea level rise. Two years into a pilot experiment, the results suggest that in the appropriate places this green climate adaptation might work.
Black rails are one of the most secretive of birds. But new research is showing that the scurrying marshland species can pick up and move if it must.
National Park Service ecologist Sarah Allen has been looking at the “big picture” of marine ecosystem health since the mid-1970s when she worked as a field biologist on the Farallon Islands, then later in the ’80s and ’90s tracking seabirds, … Read more
The forecast calls for big rain this weekend from an “atmospheric river,” a plume of moisture stretching thousands of miles across the Pacific and splashing onto land right smack on the Northern California coast.
In the 150-plus years that we’ve been tracking rainfall in Northern California, it’s never been this dry. It was the driest December in many places, and this week’s drizzle wasn’t enough to keep San Francisco from its driest-ever January. And … Read more
The survey research that Peter Moyle started decades ago now has a dual purpose: It offers evidence for the free fall of native fish populations, but it also may ultimately contribute to one of the best opportunities to soften this decline.
Over two years, David Kroodsma rode his bike 21,000 miles from Palo Alto to Tierra del Fuego and then from New York back home, to study and talk about climate change. A Q&A with the San Francisco-based climate journalist, scientist and educator, who’s recently authored a book about his experiences.
This past fall a cyanobacteria known as, Microcystis aeruginosa, spiked toxin levels above the state’s safe recreational exposure limit at Watsonville’s Pinto Lake. Scientists and the community have begun tackling the problem and hope that conclusions drawn at Pinto Lake will help remedy cyanbacterial blooms elsewhere.
