ABI 198 Field Notes

Methods and Fieldwork 04/28/25

Great work, everyone!  Huge shoutout for wrapping up your proposal presentations and participating in our final vote! After thoughtful discussion, Section B will be studying Acorn woodpecker granary behavior for our field study, specifically looking at how it relates to tree health, fire damage, and acorn storage. We’ve got some great momentum, so let’s use the time before Wednesday’s class to get up to speed and prepare for a productive field session. Below is a full breakdown of the meeting, what needs to be done before next class, and the agenda for our next field visit.   Meeting Minutes – Friday, April 24 th : 12:00 PM - 10 minutes group pre-task 12:10 PM - Acorn Woodpecker & Seed Caching Group 12:30 PM - Oak Health & Ant Biodiversity Group 12:50 PM - Woodpecker Nesting Cavities Group 1:10 PM - Pipevine Swallowtail Larvae Group 1:20–1:35 PM - Vote →  Acorn woodpecker & granaries Won! 1:40 PM -System brainstorm: site visits, literature...

Greetings, Avengers! Great job on our mission today! Despite loosing a few of our comrades, that will not stop us. Why? Because we have sugar (creativity), spice (determination), everything nice (teamwork), and chemical X! (for legal reasons, that is a joke) Here's what we did today: Time Activity  Duration  10:00am  Shared individual ideas on methods 52 minutes  10:52am  Lecture from Spider-man (Adrian) 15 minutes  11:08am  Creating an idea/method with a group 32 minutes 11:40am  Share group idea with class  10 minutes  11:50am  End of class announcements with Iron Man (Marshall) and  Athena  5 minutes  Pictures from today:  Fallen soliders :( An un-bee-liveable presentation  Training in progress...

We had another good day today looking into our four different potential research questions.  Here's our minutes: Time Activity Duration 10:00 AM Meet at Mann Lab - 10:40 AM Drive out to Cahill 40m 10:50 AM Split off into our four groups and go observe 130m 1:00 PM Met back near the vans to briefly discuss what was found 10m 1:10 PM Drive back to UC Davis 40m 1:50 PM Dismissed - Since we all split off, here’s some highlights of each group’s adventure: Woodpecker & Quail group They hiked up a steep slope to look at some of the more remote areas that burned in the Hennessey Fire to see if they could find any signs of woodpeckers. They found a few cavities and two seed banks! The quail group followed along and counted quail as we inspected some of the high severity fire areas. Nuttall's woodpecker at the seed bank Woodpecker cavity (left), Seed bank (right) California Quail The quail group thought the seed banks were really interesting so we're going to be turning our foc...

04/21/2025 Summary of today's class Last Friday, we finalized our research question after hearing presentations on 4 different species. This time, our class was split into 2 destinations - Cahill and Arboretum - to forage for butterflies ! Cahill team observed 120+ butterflies and even succeed in hunting caterpillars. Arboretum team observed about 20 butterflies and successfully hunted 9 among them.  Pipevine Swallowtails were abundant but there will be a decline according to iNaturalist. Alternative method is buying Painted ladies eggs $0.5/each. 4/21 Monday's Timeline 10:00 - 10:25 : sharing literature review homework 10:25 : divided into 2 separate groups -> head to each destination (Cahill & Arboretum) 10:30 - 11:20 : foraged bottom end of Arboretum 11 - 1 : foraged Cahill 11:30 - 12:50 : foraged upper end of Arboretum 1 - 1:30 : visited bee bio (Arboretum team) 1:40 - 2 : meet back at classroom and shared each experiences Pictures 🦋 Cahill SNAKE WARNING 🦋 A...

April 18, 2025 Previously, our class visited Quail Ridge and Putah Creek to help formulate research questions for our ultimate goal of conducting a project in field ecology. During our last meeting on Monday, we narrowed down our topics to four species and ended the session by assigning groups to present possible research questions for each species. Today, the four groups presented their interesting and creative research questions that they devised for butterflies, ticks, sharp-tailed snakes, and crow. Meeting Minutes 10:00 AM : Met at Briggs Hall, room 122. 10:10 - 11:45 AM : Groups did their presentations on butterflies, sharp-tailed snakes, ticks, and crows 11:45 AM : Voted to work on butterflies as the main species of the project 10:55 AM :  Voted on the specific research question we wanted to conduct for butterflies  Presentations Butterflies : Grace, Chloe, Sai, Manu, and Eva gave their presentation on butterflies and proposed two possible research questions. The first w...

ABI 198: Section B 4/18/2025 Hi guys, welcome back to a new blog of our ABI 198 course. It has been long since we met in the Briggs Hall, but it is nice for everyone to be inside and chat collaboratively on our potential research question. Everyone did a great job of sharing their ideas to the class! With the 17 ideas, we are able to break into two groups, which one is interested in birds and one is interested in insects. Each group was able to discuss in depth on their research topic and set a goal on what they will be looking for next Wednesday's class in the field.  Timeline: 12:15 pm - Students goes around talking about their individual proposal   12:45 pm - Break into two groups with general interest on birds or insects 1:25 pm - Two group came together and share their ideas 1:35 pm - Groups go back to their own and discuss their plan for Wednesday's class 1:50 pm - Class dismiss Summary of Two Group's Idea Moth Group: - Interested in how insecticide affects mating b...