Environmental Research

Note: This story originally appeared in the Fall 2014 issue of UC Merced Magazine.

Before it infects humans who breathe it in, the fungus that causes valley fever changes shapes in the environment. Once infected, some people fight it off while others die.

MERCED, Calif. — The solar energy industry is emerging as a key player in the multi-pronged approach California will take in leading the nation in renewable energy, experts say.

And the University of California’s research is leading the way.

The University of California, Merced, home of The University of California Advanced Solar Technologies Institute (UC Solar), is sponsoring a seminar exploring the solar industry present and future, and the many creative initiatives being developed by the University of California.

Professor Carolin Frank will collect $1.6 million over the next four years to continue researching the nitrogen-fixing bacteria that live in pine needles and to work with the Sierra Foothill Charter School, which she helped found.

California is deficit-spending its water and has been for a century, according to state data analyzed recently by researchers from the University of California.

UC Merced Professor Joshua Viers and postdoctoral researcher Ted Grantham, with UC Davis at the time, explored the state’s database of water-rights allocations, and found that allocations in California exceed the state's actual water supply by five times the average annual runoff and 100 times the actual surface-water supply for some river basins.

The discovery of a new, rare species of monkey flower by Professor Jason Sexton provides clues as to how new species are born.

Sexton, who researches the monkey flowers that grow wild throughout California, and are especially prolific in the Sierra Nevada, conducted this work with researchers Kathleen G. Ferris and John H. Willis, both from Duke University.

As the climate warms, sources of the water so critical to life everywhere on Earth are drying up.

By the end of this century, communities dependent on freshwater from mountain-fed rivers could see significantly less water, according to a new climate model recently released by University of California researchers.

For example, people who get freshwater from the Kings River could see a 26 percent decrease in river flow.

Extreme changes in seasonality in the Sierra Nevada can have lasting impacts on meadow health and could mean less water and carbon storage in high elevation wetlands, according to research conducted at UC Merced.