Karthick Ramakrishnan, a public policy professor at UCR, and founder of AAPI Data, said the richness and detail of the data shows environmental groups need to consider reaching out to AAPI populations.
UCR entomologist Tim Paine studies pest management in forests. He said treating trees with insecticides in campgrounds and areas used by people is part of the Forest Service’s policy. "The western pine beetle is a natural part of the forest," he said. "They're a vital part of that ecosystem — a problem from our perspective when they get to really high populations because they can kill large numbers of trees."
Bd is a deadly fungus causing a global pandemic that has either contributed to or caused the probable extinction of 90 amphibian species. UCR microbiologists Mark Yacoub and Jason Stajich have discovered a virus that infects Bd, and they think it can be genetically engineered to control or destroy the fungal disease.
A proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to kill roughly half a million barred owls to protect the spotted owl has animal welfare advocates debating the moral issue of killing one species to protect another. Cameron Barrows, a retired emeritus researcher at UCR's Center for Conservation Biology, says that without a barred owl management strategy, spotted owls will disappear.
According to UCR's Eddie Schwieterman, there were no trees on Earth for most of the history of life on Earth and for most of the history of photosynthesis.