Spring 23 CALeDNA Newsletter
Updates from the field and the lab
Here’s an update on what our program is doing, and some shout-outs!
Past Events
We’ve reinvigorated a project on Cascade Ranch (North of Santa Cruz, next to Pie Ranch). On April 15, we had 56 UCSC BIOE 19 students show up to collect samples. Many thanks to Rosanna Petralia for working with us! Cascade Ranch is restoring land that used to be Brussels sprouts farms to be productive regenerative farms and natural spaces.
On Earth Day, we collaborated with the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History to survey biodiversity with eDNA at Arana Gulch. Rocio Sánchez-Nolasco, the lead organizer from the Museum was wonderful to hike with, along with students and local volunteers. We are excited to plan future events together!
The JRS Foundation awarded UCLA lead Dr. Ren Larison, the University of Rwanda, and CALeDNA, support to run 3 more eDNA research workshops in Rwanda focused on Nyungwe and Akagera National Parks. A Rwandan graduate student, Janvier Uwayezu, will be joining this fall.
Shout Outs
Two CALeDNA postdocs in the UCSC Paleogenomics Lab got jobs! Congratulations to Dr. Kimberley Ballare, now a research ecologist at the USFS in Bozeman, and Dr. Chloé Orland, who is joining Action Against Hunger as an ecologist.
TWO CALeDNA researchers just had babies! Drs. Lenore Pipes and Jen Quick-Cleveland, we are so impressed with you and wish you both great health and love! Can’t wait to meet our youngest citizen scientists.
Graduate student Madeline Slimp was featured in UCSC Tuesday Newsday for her work on eDNA in South Africa with NASA! This project involves comparing California and South African eDNA biodiversity patterns, which will help our communities better integrate eDNA and remote sensing data.
Lab tech Ajith Seresinghe, along with ecologist David Herbst and Jeff Lauder of the Sierra Streams Institute received funding from the California Institute of Biodiversity to build a reference library of Sierra stream benthic macroinvertebrates and continue some stream metabarcoding. Macroinverts are excellent indicators of stream health. Ajith is finishing up the first CIB project now focused on getting macroinvertebrate community data from just a little bit of ethanol that specimems are preserved in.
Jacob Nesslage, doctoral student with Erin Hestir at UC Merced working on remote sensing and eDNA in Central Valley wetlands and the North Bay’s Russian River, passed his proposal defense!
The Paleogenomics Lab got a NextSeq 2000 so we can deliver more data for the same price for those who use our recharge facility
Beth Shapiro was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Congrats!
Dr. Levi Simons and SCCWRP published on bioassessment tools in Ecological Applications
Other grad students working on eDNA projects took their comprehensive exams this week. We’re proud of them!!
Upcoming bioblitz events and cool things eDNA:
Los Angeles River — May 20 — Four locations! We really could use the help, and these are super fun.
Pinto Lake, Watsonville — starts Friday July 28 and will be monthly from there— please contact Wendy Bussiere wbussier@ucsc.edu
Our eDNA Explorer website is getting closer to launch. Please sign up to get updates at ednaexplorer.org. Our reference database maker is working well for metabarcoding projects, so if you would like your own custom reference database for metabarcoding primers, please get in touch with us at hello@ednaexplorer.org so we can have your reference database ready for launch. This will enable you to process your own fastq data with our latest software.
Thanks for tuning in for updates. We wish you a beautiful week!