University of California, Merced

Two decades of conservation agriculture enhances soil structure, carbon sequestration, and water retention in Mediterranean soils

Abstract. Conservation agriculture offers a pathway for enhancing soil health with climate co-benefits in Mediterranean agricultural systems. This study examined long-term impacts of combining no-till management with cover cropping over 20 years in California's Central Valley, pr...

Toward Sustainable Aquaculture: Microalgae Fully Replace Fishmeal and Fish Oil in Rainbow Trout Diets While Maintaining Growth, Nutritional Quality, and Cost Viability

As global demand for affordable, high-quality protein continues to rise, commercial aquaculture has emerged as a critical solution. The industry’s reliance on ocean-derived fishmeal (FM) and fish oil (FO) for aquafeed poses sustainability concerns. Marine microalgae offer a promi...

Mechanochemically Controlled Functionalization of Graphene Microdrums

Abstract Mechanochemical reactions involve the use of applied mechanical distortions to reactants to drive chemical reactions. In this work, we demonstrate the use of mechanical force to direct location-specific reactions on suspended bilayer graphene microdrums, by manipulating...

Spectral inference of arterial stiffness from a single distal velocity waveform

Abstract Arterial stiffness is a key determinant of cardiovascular health and a central quantity in biological wave mechanics. Conventional pulse wave velocity (PWV) measurement requires simultaneous recordings at two spatially separated sites, limiting clinical accessibility. He...

Investigation of helium ion damage on tungsten using secondary electron emission spectroscopy

Helium plasma exposure on tungsten can induce severe structural and chemical modifications, impacting crucial components in fusion reactors and high-radiation environments. In this study, we investigate helium-induced damage in tungsten using a combination of electron microscopy,...

The Complexity of Parental Engagement in First-Generation Latina College Journeys

Existing research finds that parental involvement in higher education is critical for adult children’s academic success. However, this literature overwhelmingly focuses on White families and has paid minimal attention to Latine families. Drawing on 30 interviews (15 first-generat...

Disability Representation in Social and Personality Psychology Research: A State-of-the-Art Review

We conducted a systematic state-of-the-art review examining disability representation of three flagship social and personality psychology journals between 2017 and 2022. First, we examined the 2,343 articles published in that time frame and found that 192 (8.19%) of them used at...

The biogeography of giant viruses and interactions with Eukaryotes across European lakes

Abstract Advances in genomics have revealed a diversity of nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (phylum Nucleocytoviricota) that infect eukaryotes, but their ecology beyond the oceans remains poorly understood. We recover 208 Nucleocytoviricota genomes, including 205 putative new...

Niche occupancy of Jamaican bat caves: Diversity increases isotopic niche packing

There are over 1000 documented caves across Jamaica, many of them used by diverse communities of bats. Species across these communities fit within the same trophic guilds and families and can be found at the same sites, raising the question of how these species can coexist. We ca...

The chromosomal genome sequence of Pseudorhiza aurosa von Lendenfeld, 1882 (Rhizostomeae: Lychnorhizidae) and its associated microbial metagenome sequences

We present a genome assembly from a specimen of Pseudorhiza aurosa (Cnidaria; Scyphozoa; Rhizostomeae; Lychnorhizidae). The genome sequence has a total length of 183.49 megabases. The whole assembly is scaffolded into 18 chromosomal pseudomolecules. The mitochondrial genome has a...

Resurrected in the field: benefits of rapid adaptation to historic drought seen mainly at the leading edge of a plant species’ range

Montane plant populations are experiencing novel conditions due to climate change. Furthermore, climate change is causing increased climate perturbations, such as the 2012-2016 drought in the western US, remarkable in its aridity, longevity, and warmer temperatures. This drought...

The Python simulations of chemistry framework: 10 years of an open-source quantum chemistry project

Over the past decade, the Python-based Simulations of Chemistry Framework (PySCF) has developed into a widely used open-source platform for electronic-structure theory and quantum chemical method development. This article reviews the major advances since the previous overview in...

Characterization of diseases in temporal comorbidity networks

Comorbidity networks, or disease-disease networks, represent relationships between diseases and can reveal non-random disease associations and multimorbidity structure. These patterns reflect shared pathophysiology, diagnostic pathways, and risk of adverse outcomes. Using large-s...

Does Medicare Advantage Funding Disparity Affect Managed Care Insurers’ Profitability? Evidence from Puerto Rico

Abstract Introduction Puerto Rico's Medicare Advantage market operates under a persistent yet fluctuating federal funding disparity, with reported benchmark payments approximately 38% below those in United States states. Health insurance industry representatives have argued that...

A genomic catalog of Earth’s bacterial and archaeal symbionts

1 SUMMARY Microbial symbiosis drives the functional and phylogenomic diversification of life on Earth, yet remains underexplored due to culturing challenges. This study employed machine learning (ML) to predict symbiotic lifestyles in hundreds of thousands of microbial genomes fr...

Whole orchard recycling in California's Central Valley: Benefits, management, and adoption

Abstract Whole orchard recycling (WOR) has become a common practice in California (CA) orchards and vineyards due to declining options for agricultural biomass disposal. WOR is the process by which entire orchards or vineyards are shredded into chips, spread onto the soil surface...

You Talking to Me? Quorum Sensing in Symbiotic Microbes and Their Response to Environmental Variation

Bacterial communication or quorum sensing (QS) is a common yet complex system where multiple factors influence the extent to how this chemical dialog is transferred from a single clone to the larger community of microbes in the population. More often, when bacteria are in large c...

VOC observations improve transferable ozone prediction using interpretable machine learning

Abstract Surface ozone variability is controlled by complex interactions among emissions, chemistry, and meteorology, yet the extent to which machine learning models capture chemically meaningful relationships remains uncertain. Here we apply an automated machine learning framewo...

Genomic catalogue of giant viruses reveals expanded diversity and functional potential

Nucleocytoplasmic large DNA and Mirusviricota viruses exhibit taxonomic richness which continually expands due to metagenomic sequencing. Here we curate a database of giant virus metagenome-assembled genomes (GVMAGs V2), comprising 8,508 species-level representatives from 18,727...

The evolution of plasticity in drought-related traits in central and edge populations of Mimulus cardinalis

Phenotypic plasticity can influence population persistence, range dynamics, and evolutionary potential in heterogeneous landscapes. If adaptive, plasticity may buffer populations against environmental variability, climate change, and extreme events. Yet, few studies have examined...