Backyard Orchard News
Home Sweet Home
It's good to see county and state fairs focusing on bugs 'n bees. These displays inform, educate...
Elisa Seppa (left), superintendent of McCormack Hall, Solano County Fair and assistant superintendent Gloria Gonzalez work on a skep display. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
McCormack Hall assistant Deborah Miller of Vallejo just finished installing this display, which includes colorful ladybugs. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Turning a Page in Entomological History
It was great to see Robert E. Page Jr., emeritus professor and former chair of the UC Davis...
Bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk of UC Davis manages the Robert Page specialized genetic stock. These bee hives were in a Dixon almond orchard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Equivalent to an Olympic Gold Medal
Walter Leal isn’t participating in the Olympics, but he medaled just the same. It was not...
Chemical ecologist Walter Leal. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Former Kearney intern lauded for outstanding Ph.D. dissertation
Leslie Roche of Orosi, who served as a high school intern at Kearney, received the 2012 Shapiro Family Award for Excellence in Science for the quality of her doctorate dissertation and outstanding academic and research record at UC Davis.
"She did a bang-up job with us, continued through her undergraduate studies at UC Davis, and ended up doing a great Ph.D. dissertation," Mitchell said.
Roche's dissertation is titled, "Cattle Grazing and Provisioning of Ecosystem Services in Sierra Nevada Mountain Meadows." Working with UCCE specialist Ken Tate, Roche explored livestock grazing on U.S. Forest Service public lands and the conservation of the Yosemite toad, a sensitive species proposed for listing as endangered.
“Dr. Roche’s research was conducted in this charged political environment, filling a crucial gap in our basic understanding of toad-livestock interactions and providing direct translation for conservation of the Yosemite toad,” said Tate, Russell L. Rustici endowed chair in rangeland watershed science.
Roche is now a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Davis California Rangeland Watershed Laboratory, completing research and publications from additional projects she pursued during her doctoral program.
It's the Nature of Things
The thing about predators and prey is that it's the nature of things. Take spiders. The many...
Orbweaver eating its wrapped prey, a honey bee. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Two spiders ganging up on a honey bee. One is administering a fatal bite. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)