In a 19-year study at the University of California, Davis, scientists dug six feet down in a study plot to compare changes in soil carbon in conventional, cover-cropped, and compost-added plots of corn-tomato and wheat-fallow cropping systems. Their findings showed that soil health and the importance of carbon is more complex than often realized but, with the right management, the soil is a huge natural resource where carbon can be sequestered. The implications are that the right applications not only help to slow the rapid rise of carbon in the atmosphere but foster effective sustainable agriculture.

Sixteen UC Davis researchers have been named in the annual Highly Cited Researchers 2019 list released by the Web of Science Group, which compiles statistics on scientific publishing. The list identifies scientists and social scientists who have published multiple papers ranking in the top 1 percent by citations in a particular field and year, over a 10-year period. 

A UC Davis study found that the damaged gut lining (known as leaky gut) in monkeys infected with chronic simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), an HIV-like virus, was rapidly repaired within five hours of receiving Lactobacillus plantarum bacteria.

In a recent study published in Pediatric Research, researchers have demonstrated that colonizing infants with a specific strain of probiotic bacteria --B. infantis EVC001--reduces intestinal inflammation up to 55-fold compared to infants receiving breastmilk only. The researchers on the study hypothesize that the lack of B. infantis in the gut may be at the root of the recent rise in autoimmune conditions.

New video published by the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) on Dr. Raquel Peixoto's protocol: Prospecting Microbial Strains for Bioremediation and Probiotics Development for Metaorganism Research and Preservation.

Professors Jonathan Eisen and Veronica Martínez-Cerdeño were awarded the 2019 ADVANCE Scholar Award or their work to improve gender equity in STEM through their teaching, research and service in addition to encouraging research, leadership, and outreach to underserved communities and/or mentorship of underrepresented students.

What is the microbiome? The microbiome is a community of bacteria, fungi, viruses and other microbes that live inside your body and on its surface. Just as in a community of people, you’ll find both good and bad actors: Some of the microbes, like the gut bacteria that help you digest food, are beneficial, while others, like certain viruses, can be dangerous. Everyone’s microbiome differs, depending on your age, gender, diet and immune system. And the types of microbes on one part of the body may be different from those on another.

Authored by Bill Dodd, D-Napa, SB-442 allows the California Department of Parks and Recreation to issue commercialization permits and set commercialization fees that can be used for the protection, conservation and restoration of resources of the state park system. The University of California, Davis, became a major driver for the new legislation after Johan Leveau, a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology, discovered a promising anti-fungal microbe in soils from the Jug Handle State Natural Reserve along the Mendocino Coast but found himself unable to translate his discovery into a public benefit because existing state law did not allow the commercialization of research materials from state parks.

Domestic cats, like many other mammals, use smelly secretions from anal sacs to mark territory and communicate with other animals. A new study from the Genome Center at the University of California, Davis, shows that many odiferous compounds from a male cat are actually made not by the cat, but by a community of bacteria living in the anal sacs. The work is published Sept. 13 in PLOS ONE.  “Cats use a lot of volatile chemicals for signaling, and they probably don’t make them all,” said David Coil, project scientist at the Genome Center and an author on the paper.  The experiment grew out of the KittyBiome Project started at the Genome Center by Holly Ganz, a postdoctoral researcher working with Coil and Jonathan Eisen, professor of evolution and ecology in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences.