Climate Change

If El Niños Happen Twice as Often in the Future, What Happens to Seabirds?

A modeling study from UC Davis researchers in the Department of Wildlife Fish and Conservation Biology addresses the impacts of more frequent El Niño events on seabirds and some fish species. The model was specifically chosen for its sensitivity to environmental changes. Scientists noticed unanticipated changes in the Brandt’s cormorant population with increasing and decreasing the frequency of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) phenomenon. 

Can corals adapt to climate change?

Rachael Bay, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis, investigated the likelyhood of coral continuing to adapt to global greenhouse emissions. Unfortunately, the corals can only withstand so much. Bay discusses how some corals are genetically predisposed to tolerate heat, which could help them adapt. Ultimately, there still needs to be a reduction in emissions as the coral can not adapt fast enough to outpace more severe future climate-change scenarios.  

The Last Stop: When There's Nowhere Colder to Go - How Climate Change Is Affecting Polar Fish at the Tip of a Warming World

Fish have been migrating to cooler water over the last several decades as the ocean warms. But in Antarctica, the coldest place on the planet, polar species have nowhere to go.

Marine life in Antarctica is especially vulnerable to climate change, which is warming oceans throughout the world. Anne Todgham, an animal scientist at the University of California, Davis, is studying how — and whether — polar fish will adapt to the changing conditions.

Genetic Key to Salt-Tolerance Discovered in Tilapia Fish

UC Davis Faculty member and professor, Dietmar Kueltz and his team of collaborators have published research regarding ave now identified short DNA segments in tilapia that influence the expression of the genes that regulate the fish’s internal body chemistry in response to salinity stress. This discovery may help in the species conservation efforts, and help to identify what other fish species might share same trait.

Melting Sea Ice May Be Speeding Nature’s Clock in the Arctic

UC Davis Faculty member Eric Post's article on Arctic Warming addresses the correlation between warming temperatures and when inland plants bloom. The article focuses on how this change in "nature's clock" will affect the ecology of the Arctic region. 

To read the article from UC Davis News click here

Year in Review:  Ocean changes upend North Coast fisheries

BODEGA BAY — In any other year, the large bins of Dungeness crab that are loaded dockside in this busy fishing village and rolled out by truck to be sold and served during the holidays would seem like no big deal.

But after an unprecedented delay in the 2015-16 commercial season forced local crabbers to leave their boats tied up through winter and on into spring, the tons of meaty crustaceans landed in port this month have been a welcome sign of normalcy restored, if only for a moment.

Mass Oyster Die-Off in S.F. Bay Related to Atmospheric Rivers

Study First to Show Biological Impact of Atmospheric Rivers

Amospheric rivers contributed to a mass die-off of wild Olympia oysters in north San Francisco Bay in 2011, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis and the San Francisco Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, or NERR.

The study, published Dec. 14 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, is the first to document biological impacts of atmospheric rivers, which are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity under future climate change.