Daniel Karp

Absolutely amazing afternoon in the Galapagos with the kiddo's favorite bird! Courtship displays, weird behaviors jockying for mates, and babies. Magical!

Tropical biodiversity loss from land-use change is severely underestimated by local-scale assessments - Nature Ecology & Evolution Analysis of data on 971 bird species in natural habitat and cattle pasture in Colombia finds that near-national-scale losses of bird diversity greatly exceed losses recorded at the local scale, sugges...

Analysis of data on 971 bird species in Colombia finds that near-national-scale losses of bird diversity greatly exceed losses recorded at the local scale, suggesting that extrapolations from local studies will severely underestimate biodiversity losses
www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧪

Bird of the day... Week? Season?!

Great morning out with Julian Tattoni helping out with his molt study in SF!

Look into the lab assistant series. 10 percent benefits for short term hire

UC Davis Team Breaks ‘Big Day’ County Record with 173 Birds The wind was whipping across a dark, open field near the southern edge of Yolo County when two small burrowing owls suddenly burst into flight. For a team of birders from UC Davis, the birds marked th...

Amidst all the heaviness out there, so fun to share a wonderful story about our record-breaking big day a month ago!

Thanks so much to Tiffany Dobbyn of @ucdavisnews.bsky.social for writing this!

caes.ucdavis.edu/news/uc-davi...

Anya Brown is investigating microbes’ critical role in coral reefs Her research team’s contributions could hold promise for coral adaptation and conservation.

Anya Brown - @dranyabrown.bsky.social, marine scientist at @ucdavis.bsky.social & Nat Geo Explorer, studies how coral microbes shape reef resilience. “It’s the kind of thing that unites so much of life on Earth,” she says. 🌊🪸🐠

Read more in Nat Geo: www.nationalgeographic.com/impact/artic...

Fun day at the Cosumnes River MAPS station... Caught and got to handle my first Red-shouldered Hawk! (With all necessary permits and permissions)

Graphs showing 25 years of budgets for the National Institute of Health, NASA, and the NSF. In all cases, the proposed budget for next year is far, far below any year of the previous quarter century.

There are 2 previous historical cases of countries destroying their science and universities, crippling them for decades: Lysenkoism in the USSR and Nazi Germany. The Trump administration will be the 3rd.
It's not just budgets but research, institutions, expertise, and training the next generation.

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic.

Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.

But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.

Speak up now before it is too late.

(inflation adjusted $-s below)

The goal is plainly and literally to cut the number of people involved in basic science in the US by 70%

Just absolutely devastating

@ucdavis.bsky.social faculty do so much important research!

@dskarp.bsky.social #academicsky #ucdavisresearch #goaggies

From Labs to Lives UC Davis researchers describe the impact of their work and the life-altering consequences if federal funding for medical research were reduced or eliminated.

Karp’s work helps farmers adopt win-win practices that support biodiversity, food safety and sustainable agriculture.

Learn more about Karp's USDA-funded research, visit ucdavis.edu/labs-to-lives.

#FromLabsToLives | #SaveResearch

Headshot of Daniel Karp against a dark blue background with white text that reads, "From Labs to Lives: How Research Funding Solves Real World Problems" and his quote, "Without federal funding, we lose not only critical research that helps protect our food and wildlife, but also the people being trained to carry this work into the future."

At UC Davis, Daniel Karp leads studies on how we can protect wildlife while growing abundant, healthy safe food. His USDA-funded research shows that removing natural habitat from farmland—often done to reduce foodborne illness—can actually make things worse.

YouTube video by UC Davis From Labs to Lives: Daniel Karp, Ph.D

Thanks so much to @ucdavis.bsky.social for organizing the 'Labs To Lives' initiative, explaining the importance of federally funded research.

I was thrilled to go on and talk about some of the federally funded work that has supported my lab: youtu.be/sw97KYR7JNE?...

Job alert: Ian Grettenberger and I are hiring a postdoc to work at UC Davis and study conservation biocontrol in CA lettuce.

Apply by June 1, with a late summer or early winter start date.

The job ad is here: dkarp.faculty.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/u....

Feel free re-post!

Mistletoe-bearing trees positively influence bird foraging patterns across urban and natural environments - Urban Ecosystems Worldwide, parasitic mistletoe species have become successful inhabitants of urban forests, despite novel host trees and communities of potential avian dispersers compared to natural habitats. Though ...

In these crazy times, I'm thrilled to share this paper, led and developed by the amazing Kees Hood (as an undergrad!), exploring interactions between birds and mistletoe in urban and seminatural environments.

Check it out!

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

What really gets me about the 'dire wolves' isn't whether or not we brought back an extinct species (we didn't). But that this is being spun as conservation.

Scrolling down colossal.com, you see these screen grabs.

In no world is de-extinction the solution to these issues!!!!!

Amazing! Huge congrats and so richly deserved :)

Been meaning to share this sooner, but with everything going on the timing has felt horrid. But, it doesn't look like that's going to change, so...

In February, I launched my lab as a new Asst Prof in the Department of Entomology at the University of Minnesota!

jhemberger.github.io/ibug_lab_web...

Meet The 2024-2025 Chancellor's Fellows Meet the eight faculty members who comprise the newest class of Chancellor’s Fellows, given to early career academics doing exemplary work in their fields.

In the midst of all this madness in the world, pretty happy about this honor- truly a testament to my incredible lab, department, and collaborators!!!

Thanks @ucdavisnews.bsky.social for the write up!

www.ucdavis.edu/news/meet-20...

“In the absence of natural wetlands, rice has become essential surrogate habitat for an incredible diversity of California wildlife,” said @dskarp.bsky.social @ucdavis.bsky.social via @katkerlin.bsky.social

From Labs to Lives From Labs to Lives

Loving this @ucdavisnews.bsky.social effort to highlight the incredibly important work that federal funding enables at @ucdavis.bsky.social!

This work is improving human wellbeing, precipitating new discoveries, spurring economic activities, and so much more!

www.ucdavis.edu/research/lab...

Wonderful day draining rice fields to collect all our 🐟🐟🐟!

Now we get to see how they are affecting rice yields and greenhouse gases :)

Little Birds, Little Poops, Little Food Safety Risk It doesn’t require a degree in ornithology, a lab test or even an app for most growers to determine whether bird poop near their crops presents a food safety risk. They just need to ask themselves a s...

🐦 Austin Spence and Daniel Karp were highlighted in a UC Davis article discussing how smaller birds pose minimal food safety risk on farms. Research shows pathogen survival is linked to fecal size, supporting conservation-friendly agriculture.
▶️ www.ucdavis.edu/climate/news...
#AgScience #FoodSafety

Scatterplot titled “Empirical Evidence of Ideological Targeting in Federal Layoffs: Agencies seen as liberal are significantly more likely to face DOGE layoffs.” • The x-axis represents Perceived Ideological Leaning of federal agencies, ranging from -2 (Most Liberal) to +2 (Most Conservative), based on survey responses from over 1,500 federal executives. • The y-axis shows Agency Size (Number of Staff) on a logarithmic scale from 1,000 to 1,000,000. Each point represents a federal agency: • Red dots indicate agencies that experienced DOGE layoffs. • Gray dots indicate agencies with no layoffs. Key Observations: • Liberal-leaning agencies (left side of the plot) are disproportionately represented among red dots, indicating higher layoff rates. • Notable targeted agencies include: • HHS (Health & Human Services) • EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) • NIH (National Institutes of Health) • CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) • Dept. of Education • USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development) • The National Nuclear Security Administration (DOE), despite its conservative leaning (+1 on the scale), is an exception among targeted agencies. • A notable outlier: the Department of Veterans Affairs (moderately conservative) also faced layoffs despite its size. Takeaway: The figure visually demonstrates that DOGE layoffs disproportionately targeted liberal-leaning agencies, supporting claims of ideological bias. The pattern reveals that layoffs were not driven by agency size or budget alone but were strongly associated with perceived ideology. Source: Richardson, Clinton, & Lewis (2018). Elite Perceptions of Agency Ideology and Workforce Skill. The Journal of Politics, 80(1).

The DOGE firings have nothing to do with “efficiency” or “cutting waste.” They’re a direct push to weaken federal agencies perceived as liberal. This was evident from the start, and now the data confirms it: targeted agencies overwhelmingly those seen as more left-leaning. 🧵⬇️

No one deserves this. But to do this to these selfless people...

It is also devastating talking to anxious, soon-to-graduate students about their futures.

So here's to supporting each other as we continue finding ways to do the work the world so desperately needs.

Weeks of devastation, watching our scientific enterprise unravel.

Scientists/practitioners at NSF, NOAA, USGS, USDA, NPS, NIH, CDC... are tackling the greatest challenges, improving the lives of so many, protecting nature, and unraveling the world's mysteries.

This is an attack on US science. NSF staff provide critical support for scientific infrastructure and global excellence. These are valuable dedicated public servants. Please contact your reps, write letters, make noise!

Are there any plans for rallies at NSF headquarters?

Journalists: COVER THIS!