Bodega Marine Laboratory

Environmental Toxicologist Wins UC Davis Award for Innovation and Creative Vision

 

Environmental toxicologist Christina Pasparakis, who is an assistant professor based at Bodega Marine Laboratory, is the winner of the 2024 UC Davis Award for Innovation and Creative Vision. 

The prize is funded by Susie and alum Riley Bechtel and supports outstanding non-tenured early career faculty. It comes with a $40,000 research award that Pasparakis plans to use to launch a long-term community-based microplastic monitoring program in the Bodega Marine Reserve. 

Ultrasounds for Abalone

The world’s abalone are threatened, endangered or otherwise vulnerable in nearly every corner of the planet. While captive breeding efforts are underway for some species, these giant sea snails are notoriously difficult to spawn. If only we could wave a magic wand to know when abalone are ready to reproduce, without even touching them. 

In Major Milestone, Endangered White Abalone ‘Graduate’

By Ellen Caminiti

With tears in her eyes, Kristin Aquilino stood outside the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory in late August to give a commencement speech. She offered words of encouragement and thanks to a crowd of people who had supported the graduates throughout the years. The people stood hushed, clinging on every word, as they knew this was a momentous occasion that marked a future of hope. 

Endangered White Abalone Program Yields Biggest Spawning Success Yet

Millions of Eggs Bring Program 1 Step Closer to Saving Species

The Bodega Marine Laboratory’s white abalone program has millions of new additions following its most successful spawning ever at the University of California, Davis, facility.

Three out of nine recently collected wild white abalone spawned last week, as did seven of 12 captive-bred white abalone. One wild female was particularly generous, producing 20.5 million eggs herself.

Bodega Marine Laboratory

Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) is a leader in multidisciplinary research aimed at solving complex environmental problems in coastal ecosystems. For more than 50 years, BML has provided hands-on training to students who have become leaders in the fields of marine science and policy. BML’s long history of research and training has contributed invaluably to our knowledge of coastal systems and the policy that protects them.

A new generation of marine scientists

National Science Foundation award will help UC Davis train graduate students for coastal work

The University of California, Davis, is receiving a nearly $3 million award from the National Science Foundation to train the next generation of marine scientists under a new paradigm that puts a focus on policy at the front end of research.

Scientists deploy robot larvae to solve underwater mysteries

Findings hold implications for understanding impact of climate change

Scientists from the University of California, Davis, are deploying “robot larvae” into the ocean at Bodega Bay, just north of San Francisco.

These robots mimic clouds of microscopic marine larvae, such as baby crabs, mussels, clams and rockfish. The data the bots bring back provide some of the first direct confirmation of a decades-old and surprisingly contentious scientific mystery: Where do marine larvae go, how do they get there and back, and what allows them to do this?