UCLA research makes possible rapid assessment of plant drought tolerance

UCLA professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Lawren Sack, working with colleagues in China, have discovered a new method to quickly assess plants’ drought tolerance. The method works for many diverse species growing around the world. The research, may revolutionize the ability to survey plant species for their ability to withstand drought.

Relocating Endangered Kangaroo Rats

A group of endangered kangaroo rats in San Bernardino County were relocated under a project overseen by Debra Shier, UCLA assistant adjunct professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.

Dissonant Music Brings out the Animal in Us

Research by Daniel Blumstein, professor and chair of the department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and Greg Bryant, UCLA assistant professor of communication studies, has shown that distorted and jarring music tends to excite listeners because it mimics the distress calls of animals.

Multiple Causes of Woolly Mammoth Extinction

A study by Glen MacDonald, director of UCLA’s Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and a professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) along with Robert Wayne and Blaire Van Valkenburgh, also EEB professors, found that woolly mammoths succumbed to a lethal combination of climate warming, encroaching humans and habitat change between 4,000 and 10,000 years ago.

UCLA life scientists view biodiversity through a whole new dimension

Van Savage, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Assistant Professor, Samraat Pawar, a post-doctoral scholar in Savage’s group, and their collaborators have demonstrated for the first time that the relationship between animals’ body size and their feeding rate — the overall amount of food they consume per unit of time — is largely determined by the properties of the space in which they search for their food.