Bug Squad

The UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program is incredible. It's a program that, as the name indicates, fuses art and science. Science with art. On that note, two noteworthy events sponsored by the program will take place next week.

Folks are planting milkweed for the monarchs. The milkweed (genus Asclepias) is the host plant (larval food) for the monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). No wonder the monarch is sometimes called "the milkweed butterfly.

If you have a patch of salvia (sage) growing in your yard, watch for the nectar robbers. Carpenter bees are among the insects that engage in nectar robbing. They drill a hole in the corolla of the flower, circumventing the usual plant-pollinator relationship.

You don't have to be a citizen to be a "citizen scientist," and you don't have to be a scientist to be a citizen. But "citizen scientist" is a catchy term, all the same. Basically, it's the public engagement in scientific research activities.

It's all about knowing the biodiversity in Knowland Park. And trying to save it from development. Scientists and citizen-scientists will gather Sunday, June 1 in the western highlands of the Oakland park to conduct a "bioblitz"--or a tally of the biodiversity of animals and plants living there.