Environmental Studies
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Have Wolves Saved Yellowstone’s Aspens?
“Most ecologists suspect that wolves and other predators have something to do with the decline of elk,” said Environmental Studies Professor Chris Wilmers. “But how much can be attributed to wolves, how much can be attributed to predators in general, how much is attributed to those other causes hasn’t been worked out yet.”
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Scientists push for greater climate role for Latin America’s overlooked ecosystems
Lead author Scott Winton, an ecologist from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in the U.S., carried out three years of extensive fieldwork to produce the first data-driven map of recently documented and predicted peatlands in Colombia’s Orinoquía and Amazonian regions.
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Reintroduced Carnivores’ Impacts on Ecosystems Are Still Coming Into Focus
“It’s not that there’s not evidence consistent with a trophic cascade in Yellowstone,” said Chris Wilmers, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of California Santa Cruz, and the paper’s lead author. “It’s that the effects are a lot more complicated and weaker than what was initially thought.”
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Don’t rush the trails: Conservation must come before recreation
An opinion column in Lookout Santa Cruz cited research by Professor Chris Wilmers on the impacts that the mere presence of people can have on mountain lions.
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New directory helps donors navigate the complex world of global reforestation
Researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz evaluated groups across four categories: permanence, ecological, social and financial, each backed by scientific literature on best practices. Karen Holl, a professor at UC Santa Cruz and reforestation expert, told Mongabay. “There was really no standardized way to answer that question.” So how can a tree investor…
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Large Carnivores Are Helping To Balance Ecosystems, But It’s Complicated
The study, led by Christopher Wilmers, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, looked at the findings of more than 170 papers to clarify what we know about the ecological impacts of large carnivore recovery in North America and what mysteries remain.
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Scientists conduct groundbreaking study in Calif.’s Death Valley National Park
The study’s authors have “showed record-breaking heat tolerance,” Michael Loik, an environmental studies professor and agronomist at UC Santa Cruz who was not involved in this study, told SFGATE.
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La porcícola que se come los bosques en el Meta
In the gallery forests of the Orinoquía, wetlands that do not dry out “have enormous potential to help or hinder global efforts to address climate change,” says Scott Winton, a professor at UC Santa Cruz, who discovered that “the average carbon density per area in peatlands is four to ten times greater than in the…
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Reddit’s Former CEO Wants You to Buy a Subscription for Trees
Karen Holl, a professor of environmental studies at the University of California at Santa Cruz, says those looking to purchase a tree subscription should be asking for data and, critically, how many seedlings make it to maturity. Additional coverage in the Los Angeles Times.
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Do Nations With the Most Birds Attract the Most Bird Tourists?
Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela, who is an assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, wanted to understand what drives bird-loving tourists to bring their binoculars—and their wallets—to particular countries and how to encourage more of that.
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Tracey Weiss, Our Ocean Backyard | NEXTies: Earth & Sea celebrates Santa Cruz changemakers
Professor Andrew Fisher won the “Brainwave Award” for his groundbreaking hydrological research on urban flooding, saltwater intrusion and freshwater supply in the Pajaro River Valley. Darryl Wong and Gage Dayton of the Center for Agroecology won the “Big Idea Award” for their work on UC Santa Cruz’s recent land acquisition that strengthens conservation, sustainable agriculture…
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California Launches First Solar-Covered Canal
The decision to cover canals with solar panels was influenced by a 2021 study from the University of California, Santa Cruz. The study suggested that shading California’s canals could save 63.5 billion gallons of water annually, enough to meet the residential water needs of over two million people.