By Christine Parisek & Jon Walter Food webs are the backbones of ecosystems: they chart the flow of energy through ecosystems in terms of who eats whom, and their structure helps determine whether an ecosystem will be stable over time. While food web studies often focus on relationships within a particular habitat type – a lake or a forest, for example – broader predator-prey relationships can couple a lake to the forest that surrounds it.

By Emily Chen, Katherine Lumahan, Rachel Johnson, Corey Phillis, George Whitman, Anna Sturrock, Will Satterthwaite, and Stephanie Carlson . . . Wild Pacific salmon and trout exhibit complex variation in completing their life cycle. Within a single population, some individuals leave their natal (birth) streams soon after they emerge from the nest to begin their seaward migrations, while others remain for several months or years before migrating downstream.

By Jon Walter, Gabriel Singer, Scott Colborne, Andrew L. Rypel, and Erin Tracy . . . White sturgeon are a prominent member of the sturgeon family in North America. They are generally considered the largest fish found in North American freshwaters (up to 12 feet long) and are quite long-lived (reaching 100 years or more). In California, a population of white sturgeon spawns in the Sacramento River, and these fish spend much of their lives in the San Francisco Estuary (SFE).

By Peter B. Moyle and Thomas L. Taylor . . . The fresh waters of California support a diverse, highly endemic fish fauna. Many of them are on extinction trajectories. In this “Resilient California Fishes” blog series, we discuss native species that have sufficient resiliency to keep populations large and sustainable, even in highly altered habitats. Information on these species should help us to understand why they have such resiliency in the face of large-scale changes to California waterways.

By Dennis Baldocchi and Carlos Wang Rainfall and snow falling across the state have several fates. One is runoff to rivers, reservoirs and the ocean. Another is storage in the snowpack, soil and groundwater. The third is evaporation from vegetation, soil and open water bodies. Historically, the rates and amounts of evaporation from vegetation and soil to the atmosphere have been difficult to assess.

By Alexandra Chu and Danhong Ally Li . . . For those familiar with fish archival tissues, fish otoliths are likely one of the first things that come to mind. Otoliths are indeed remarkable tools, offering insights into the water chemistry and trace elements the fish encountered while they were alive. However, we want to highlight another fascinating tissue on the rise – the fish eye lens.

 By Ted Sommer My most inspiring bike ride this past year was not on a mountain or in some exotic destination. It was sixteen flat and muddy valley miles under overcast skies. My destination was a new concrete structure designed to reconnect the Sacramento River with its adjacent floodplain, the Yolo Bypass. This habitat restoration project reflects decades of work by my team and represents one of the most important steps to save Central Valley salmon.

The Center for Watershed Sciences unveils its inaugural annual report, featuring a letter from Director Dr. Karrigan Börk, insights into ongoing research, summaries of events, and the 2025 Strategic Plan. The report also highlights popular blogs, significant grants, and the California WaterBlog's 15th anniversary.

For the first time in 20 years, no part of California is classified as in drought, but conditions remain delicate. While precipitation levels are good, concerns linger over snowpack and groundwater recovery. California faces the dual threat of potential floods and future droughts, stressing the need for proactive water management.

By Peter B. Moyle and Tom L. Taylor This is the second blog in a series on native California fishes that seem to be doing well despite multiple threats. They are still common and widely distributed, despite major changes to their habitats. The Tule Perch (Hysterocarpaus traskii) is an interesting species to include in this series because it contains three distinct subspecies, two of which seem to be doing well and one that is not.

By Petrea Moyle Marchand This is a cross-post from a blog featured on Consero Solutions. After the indefinite cancellation of school at the start of the Covid-19 quarantine, my Dad, Peter Moyle, offered to teach my kids about Putah Creek. A fish biologist and University of California, Davis professor who started studying the creek during his early years at UC Davis in the 1970s, there are few people in the world who know as much about the creek.

“Where are they now” is a series on the California WaterBlog. The series will celebrate the many alumni who got their start at the Center for Watershed Sciences (CWS) and have now gone on to bigger and better things. Blog posts from the “Where are they now” series will be peppered throughout our regular blog line up, and they will highlight both former students and past employees of CWS.

By Peter B. Moyle Smoky sunset over Eagle Lake, Lassen County, CA - home of endemic Eagle Lake rainbow trout and other endemic fishes and invertebrates. Sept 23, 2014. Will this terminal lake and its unique ecosystem survive global warming? This will be discussed in a future blog. * This is a re-post of a blog originally published 09/17/2023. The Challenge…

By Karrigan Börk and Jay Lund Yolo bybass at sunset. Photo by Karrigan Börk, 2024. California is full of gifts that keep on giving. California water provides for a bounty of social, environmental, economic, and cultural benefits. Water is the lifeblood of California farms, which have created one of the world’s great agricultural economies. Water carves our state’s beautiful landscapes and floats our boats and our bodies through some of the most magnificent places on Earth.

By Karrigan Börk You might think that teaching the same thing again every year would get old, or that taking field trips to the same location year after year would be repetitive. And, sure, gearing up to teach landlord-tenant law for the nth time can be a bit daunting.

A juvenile water penny beetle (Eubrianax edwardsii). Photo credit: Christine Parisek. By Christine A. Parisek Imagine a time you were standing at the edge of a creek – perhaps small pebbles and cobblestone were stacked along the shallow water edge, aquatic vegetation pushed its way in between, and a light breeze rustled the trees around you as the water swirled and lapped playfully at your feet.

By Kimberly Evans Our view of the Suisun Marsh when the weather becomes chilly, including Kimberly’s (top right, that’s me!) dazzling tule perch, Abigale’s wondrous starry flounder (middle left), Lynette’s swift Sacramento splittail (middle right), Kyle’s voracious common carp (bottom left), and Alex’s humble shokihaze goby (bottom right). 'Twas a morning of field work, when all through our vanNot a researcher was sleeping, and to Suisun Marsh we ran;

We invited haiku submissions from CWS members and friends to be a part of the 8th day of our California WaterBlog series, "12 Days of CWS". A haiku is a traditional Japanese three-line poem (5-7-5 syllables) that focuses on capturing a moment, feeling, or image. We hope you enjoy... and leave us your own haiku in the comments section below!

By Rachel Alsheikh Dr. Peter Moyle and Rachel Alsheikh in the Ichthyology Collection room. On the UC Davis campus, past the Watershed Sciences Building, past the cows and the Arboretum, there’s a nondescript building with a locked room. It’s a secret treasure trove: shelves upon shelves stacked with more than 8,000 jars of fish specimens preserved in ethanol. At over 30,000 fishes, it’s the fourth largest ichthyological research collection in the state, and it belongs to the…

By Kira Zalis Waldman  Intro to Water Science (ESM 100) students exploring UC Davis’ water systems through field visits - where curiosity, community, and on-the-ground learning helped transform questions into purpose. Photos by Kira Zalis Waldman and Ethan Xie. Teaching hydrology means teaching in a world where climate awareness, and inherently climate grief, often walk into the classroom before I do.

By Jonathan Walter Many ecologists spend substantial time conducting research in the field – but for some of us, our skillsets (e.g., statistics, mathematical models, data science) lend themselves to a different, more indoor career. Here’s what a typical workday might look like: 6:00 AM: Start the day with coffee on the couch. Gaze longingly at my green sturgeon art; wonder if I’ll ever see one in the wild.

By Kim Luke Kim Luke holding a common carp (Cyprinus carpio) while sampling in the UC Davis Arboretum. Photo credit Greg Urquiaga. Back in 2019, I began a project called the Carp Dependent Ecosystem Urgent Management (Carp-DEUM) Project. I started this project as an undergraduate and continued it as a junior specialist and graduate student until 2022. The project was focused on the common carp (

By Lynette Williams Duman Clockwise from left to right: The Heermann’s Gull, Bonaparte’s Gull, Short-billed Gull, and Lesser Black-backed Gull. A small slice of winter visitors to California. (Images courtesy of Lynette Williams Duman and Konshau Duman). There is no better cure for the winter blues than looking at birds, and there is no better group of birds to look at in the winter than gulls.