Bug Squad

Important climate warming research led by UC Davis entomologist Mia Lippey gained traction last week when a noted sustainable agriculture scientist wrote a commentary, “Beyond Temperature: Why Climate Adaptation in Agriculture Needs a Systems Approach” in the June 1st issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
In his commentary, Bruno Basso, the John A. Hannah Distinguished Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Michigan State University, East Lansing, praised it “an exemplary piece of system ecology.”
“The significance of this work,” Basso pointed out, “is not in rejecting climate‐driven pest risk. “Risk remains and will grow. The paper’s significance is that it dismantles the convenient story of a single‐driver, species‐agnostic response and in doing so, exposes a more uncomfortable truth about how we forecast the biosphere under climate change.”

https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/spotlight-mia-lippey-climate-change-research

"If you want to find the native bees, look for native plants and vice versa. If you want to save the native bees, save the native plants."

So said native bee conservationist and native bee photographer Krystle Hickman, author of The ABCs of California's Native Bees when she addressed a recent Bohart Museum of Entomology open house.

"I photograph native bees, the plants that they have relationships with, as well as their locations. And primarily, I photograph in California," she said, adding that she considers herself a "conservation photographer as well as a community scientist."

"Um, community scientist, it's a term that I prefer to use over citizen science because they're basically the same thing. But the last few years politically, the word citizen has kind of changed from whether or not you have a degree in what you're studying to whether or not you're documented. So just to be more inclusive, I started using community scientist as a term...So basically what I do, again, is photograph bees in their environment, document their behavior, also notate their plants are on, and I keep track of things like times, dates, and weather. So I actually have an Excel sheet for every single location I visit, and I update it year after year, and it's a great way to keep track of things."

See more on Bug Squad blog at https://ucanr.edu/blog/bug-squad/article/krystle-hickman-and-abcs-californias-native-bees