Under the right living arrangement, disease-resistant corals can help “rescue” corals that are more vulnerable to disease, found a study from the University of California, Davis, that monitored a disease outbreak at a coral nursery in Little Cayman, Cayman Islands. 

UC Davis is a collaborating partner in a new European effort to use DNA data to characterize and conserve life on Earth. The Biodiversity Genomics Europe consortium, launched Sept. 26, is affiliated with the Earth BioGenome Project, which has its administrative headquarters at UC Davis. Harris Lewin, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at UC Davis, chairs the EBP Working Group.

When you’re experimenting with water, electricity and live animals, a lot can go wrong if you’re not careful. And no one knows more about that than Rachael Bay and her research team.

They study human-induced changes in the environment and evolutionary processes — things like climate change, coral bleaching and bird migration. And when you’re doing that kind of work — handling chloroform one day and blood samples the next — you want to make sure you’re not cutting corners.

November is here and winter is closer. The weather has gotten cooler, and the nights start earlier, but campus is active, and our students are halfway through the fall quarter. Especially after the pandemic years, there’s something revitalizing about having our students on campus. Whether they’re studying for an exam on the couches in the Green Hall lobby or having a discussion section in the courtyard, their presence is always welcome.

When McKensey Middleton holds horse reins, every slight movement conveys something. Where she places the reins on the horse’s neck gives the horse direction, a path; a tug on them signals for the horse to stop or slow down.

“When you watch a rider, you’re really watching them communicate with the horse,” said Middleton, ’22 B.S. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. “Your legs, your voice, your hands, you’re using these things to communicate with the horse.” 

Plants photosynthesize to survive, and bacteria divide to reproduce, but to accomplish these necessary biological functions, the cells of these organisms employ protein trafficking. More specifically, these functionalities, among many others, rely on the twin-arginine translocation (Tat) pathway, which, when properly functioning, allows for the transportation of proteins across cellular membranes.

Summer never feels quite as long as it looks on the calendar. Those days and weeks pass quickly and, before we know it, we're back on campus. Even so, it's always a great pleasure to see our campus come to life again when students return. They bring such vibrancy to our community. For those in Davis over the summer, there were certainly some high temperatures to weather - 110F+ for several days! - but weather them we did.

The college is very pleased to welcome the newest members of its broad and diverse faculty. With appointments in the Departments of Evolution and Ecology, Plant Biology and Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, the new faculty are poised to make an impact on their respective areas of expertise, and on the classroom and laboratory experience of our students across the college.

Assistant Professor
Department of Evolution and Ecology

Every modern mammal, from a platypus to a blue whale, is descended from a common ancestor that lived about 180 million years ago. We don’t know a great deal about this animal, but the organization of its genome has now been computationally reconstructed by an international team of researchers. The work is published Sept. 30 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Donors unlocked a new level of charitable giving to the University of California, Davis, in the last fiscal year, pushing the total past the $300 million mark for the first time in the university’s history — and beating it by a wide margin.

Financials announced in September show the university raised $323 million in 2021-22, in 58,556 gifts and pledges from 32,434 donors.