Daniel Karp

Falcons reduce pre‐harvest food safety risks and crop damage from wild birds In the absence of American kestrels, there are more birds in orchards. This leads to increased crop damage and more bird faecal contamination.

🍒🪶Excited for our new article to come out in
@jappliedecology.bsky.social

We show that falcons attracted to orchards using nestboxes reduce food safety risks and crop damage from wild birds.

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Excited to hype up this excellent paper led by Mia Lippey, finishing up her PhD at @ucdavis.bsky.social, and in collaboration with @beckyck.bsky.social, @dskarp.bsky.social + others, finding that once again in (agro)ecology "it depends". 👩‍🔬 🐞🪲🌍🌐🧪 esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdfdirec...

Amazing morning tagging along for the salmon research on Putah Creek!

Text from email we received from UC Pres Milliken. States "After learning more about the history and success of the program and weighing the thoughtful perspectives that have been shared, I have concluded that barring extraordinary financial setbacks, the Presidential Postdoc Fellowship Program faculty hiring incentive program will continue while the University continues to assess the program's structure as well as its long-term financial sustainability."

You may have heard that the UC decided to cancel the Presidential Postdoc program, a decision which lots of folks found incredibly short-sighted. But we just got an email from UC Pres Milliken that the fellowship program is back, baby! (at least for the time being, but hey, it's something)

If you're an undergrad looking for a great biodiversity/conservation field course, please check this out. Run by my buddy Jordan Karubian through Tulane U.

First time chasing a rare bird with the kiddo... a total success!

(after a mild scare when a Sharp-shinned Hawk flew off with a bird in its talons that we thought was our Sagebrush Sparrow.)

The Bodega Marine Lab and @ucdavis.bsky.social were on @jeopardyofficial.bsky.social last night! 🎉

We’ll take "Ways to Make a Marine Scientist’s Day” for $1,000, please, and give a big shoutout to our @whiteabalone.bsky.social team!

📺: Season 42, E9434 - Week 10, Episode 49

New agroecology research in "Ecological Applications"👇

Spatiotemporal isolation of oilseed rape fields reduces insect pest pressure and crop damage We find that there is no one fits all approach in designing landscapes for flea beetle regulation as habitat use and scales of effect are species-specific for these pests. However, increasing the spa....

We showed that they vary even within the same genus doi.org/10.1111/1365... (shameless plug 😅)

Another really cool pest paper just came out in @esajournals.bsky.social! Led by Mia Lippey, we show how variable pest responses are to landscape context... even in the same cropping system!

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Kiddo went all out on my birthday cake this year... With a little help from @rachaelabay.bsky.social :)

The bark of a foxtail pine tree is seen from the right side while the Sierra Nevada mountains stretches out below. A woman in a light blu shirt walks beside a pine tree below in teh bottom left corner of the shot. Photo by Kat Kerlin, UC Davis

Ink and watercolor sketch of a Clark's nutcracker bird perched atop a tree snag with green pine forest below and pink, beighe, gray and blue mountain landscape in background. Art by Kat Kerlin, UC Davis

Two women, Sachi Srivastava at top and Gabrielle Katanic, wears ballcaps, light blue shirts and backpacks while looking at bushy pine tree amid large boulders in the High Sierra mountains. Photo by Kat Kerlin, UC Davis

For 4 days I followed @ucdavis.bsky.social scientists into the High Sierra to learn secrets from a tree, a bird and a changing world. I came back with this story, a new @unfoldpodcast.bsky.social episode, tons of pics and even watercolors.🌲🪺 🎨 Enjoy! www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...

The Brown and Stachowicz labs are looking for a postdoc for an NSF-funded project on the thermal dependence of disease in eelgrass! As a bonus you get to be based at the Bodega Marine Lab! Interested? Find out more here: brown-ecology.com/join-us/

The Importance of Landscape Composition for Pest Control and Crop Yield: A Global Quantitative Synthesis In a global analysis of 116 studies, we show that landscape composition affects crop yield both directly and indirectly via traits of crops, herbivores and natural enemies. Our results suggest that w...

Excited about this paper led by Katja Poveda & Heather Grab!

We use SEM to show natural habitat at large scales improves biocontrol. But, locally, it can decrease yields, perhaps due to edge effects or areas of lower agronomic quality.

Check it out!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

UC to Stop Funding Systemwide Postdoc Program Established in 1984 to encourage women and minority Ph.D.s to pursue academia, the program has attracted right-wing criticism for prioritizing diverse candidates.

I heard rumors about this but devastating to see it happening.. “the PPFP faculty hiring incentive is sunsetting as of fall 2025” 💔 www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...

Yup! Winner :)

Puffleg is a great guess and totally the right region... But it isn't right. The tail is key too :)

Ok #bird people- can anyone ID my daughter's Halloween costume? Hint the key is the feet and the tail...

(Also this costume was 100 percent kid driven)

The writer of the post, laying on the ground behind a small Jeffrey Pine Seedling growing from rocky soil.

An upclose photo of a female Anna’s Hummingbird face.

A Mountain View with pink skies and tents in the foreground.

Time for an intro! Hi everyone, my name is Mike, and I recently started grad school in the Safford Lab at UC Davis where I’ll be working towards a PhD in the Grad Group in Ecology researching avian ecology for improved conservation efforts and ecosystem management, primarily in forested systems.

Congrats to the absolutely incredible @rachaelabay.bsky.social !!!

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds: Insights from acoustic recordings and community science On 8 April 2024, a total solar eclipse disrupted light-dark cycles for North American birds during the lead-up to spring reproduction. Compiling more than 10,000 community observations and artificial ...

Eclipses fool birds into thinking it's morning!
Congrats to @rosvall-lab.bsky.social for this amazing work!

Total solar eclipse triggers dawn behavior in birds: Insights from acoustic recordings and community science | Science www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

New paper out today led by Prof. @dskarp.bsky.social

Marketing birds: The traits birdwatching tourism companies highlight in Costa Rican tour itineraries

Overall, a super fun experience and so lucky to work with my amazing collaborators: @ornithoale.bsky.social who inspired a lot of this work as well as @katherinelauck.bsky.social and Julian Tattoni who TAed the class and helped create this course-based research experience :)

Finally, larger, more attractive species were consistently more likely to be marketed.

This is despite prior work arguing that an emphasis on novel birds translates into dedicated birdwatchers preferring dull species.

Dedicated birdwatchers may value beauty in birds, just like everyone else.

Second, we were surprised that regularly observed species were more likely to be mentioned in trip itineraries.

Maybe tour operators are balancing novelty with the risk of disappointing clients when they inevitably fail to encounter rare species?

Ok, so what did we find?

First, tour operators recognized that birdwatchers value novelty above all else. Range-restricted species were ten times more likely to appear in trip itineraries than cosmopolitan species.

The most unique part: this was a multi-year class project! So fun to have undergrads help us collect the data, form their own questions, present posters, and then, eventually, have it turn into a published product!

(photos are example student posters)

Stoked to share our new paper, just out in @amornith.bsky.social, that explores the traits that predict which species that appear in Costa Rican bird itineraries!

(open access link below, thread to follow)

academic.oup.com/condor/advan...

Today my @nytimes.com colleagues and I are launching a new series called Lost Science. We interview US scientists who can no longer discover something new about our world, thanks to this year‘s cuts. Here is my first interview with a scientist who studied bees and fires. Gift link: nyti.ms/3IWXbiE

Cover of the October 2025 issue of Ecosphere

Alpine lakes among the dramatic peaks of Kings Canyon Nat'l Park grace Ecosphere's October cover. New research shows how introduced trout have impacts that ripple through the food web and reshape bird communities

Browse the full #OpenAccess issue: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/21508925...