|
Midvalley Fairy Shrimp
The midvalley fairy shrimp, ''Branchinecta mesovallensis'', is a small () freshwater crustacean in the Branchinectidae family. The midvalley fairy shrimp was only recently formally described as a species in 2000 by Belk and Fugate. Midvalley fairy shrimp are endemic to shallow ephemeral pools (pools that seasonally fill and dry up) near the middle of California's Central Valley. These vernal pool ecosystems are home to other unique organisms adapted to the ephemeral nature of the water cycle in the pools in California's mediterranean climate. It is one of eight known branchiopod species found only in Northern California. The species swims through the water on its back, using two stalked compound eyes to see where it is going. It propels itself along by beating its phyllopods. These are legs with leaflike or paddlelike structures. The moving phyllopods also serve as gills, extracting oxygen from the water stream they create. This places the shrimp in the Class Branchiopoda ("branch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NatureServe
NatureServe, Inc. is a non-profit organization based in Arlington County, Virginia, United States, US, that provides proprietary wildlife conservation-related data, tools, and services to private and government clients, partner organizations, and the public. NatureServe reports being "headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, with regional offices in four U.S. locations and in Canada." In calendar year 2011 they reported having 86 employees, 6 volunteers, and 15 independent officers. History The Nature Conservancy reports that in 2000 it spun off its 85-center Natural Heritage Network "into a new independent organization, the Association for Biodiversity Information (later renamed NatureServe)." NatureServe reports that it was established in 1994 as the Association for Biodiversity Information. In 2001 the IRS approved a name change to NatureServe that was requested in 1999, while maintaining the organization's 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status granted in July 1995. NatureServe's website dec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Environmental Quality Act
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA ) is a California statute passed in 1970 and signed in to law by then-governor Ronald Reagan, shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to institute a statewide policy of environmental protection. CEQA does not directly regulate land uses, but instead requires state and local agencies within California to follow a protocol of analysis and public disclosure of environmental impacts of proposed projects and, in a departure from NEPA, adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts. CEQA makes environmental protection a mandatory part of every California state and local (public) agency's decision making process. In 1972, the California Supreme Court broadened CEQA by interpreting a "public" project as any development that needed government approval. Since then, CEQA has become the basis for anyone with a grievance against a project to file lawsuits to slow projects b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Madera County, California
Madera County (), officially the County of Madera, is a County (United States), county located at the geographic center of the U.S. state of California. It features a varied landscape, encompassing the eastern San Joaquin Valley and the central Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada, with Madera, California, Madera serving as the county seat. Established in 1893 from part of Fresno County, California, Fresno County, Madera County reported a population of 156,255 in the 2020 census. "Madera," meaning "wood" in Spanish, signifies the county's historical ties to the lumber industry. With a section of Yosemite National Park within its borders, Madera County has leveraged tourism as a key economic driver. Additionally, it has established itself as a leading agricultural center, renowned for its substantial production of almonds, grapes, and pistachios. Despite these economic advantages, Madera County encounters socioeconomic challenges, including a median household income that falls bel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Joaquin County, California
San Joaquin County ( ; , meaning " St. Joachim"), officially the County of San Joaquin, is a county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 779,233. The county seat is Stockton. San Joaquin County comprises the Stockton– Lodi– Tracy metropolitan statistical area within the regional San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland combined statistical area. The county is located in Northern California's Central Valley just east of the very highly populated nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region and is separated from the Bay Area by the Diablo Range, having access to the Bay Area via the Altamont Pass. One of the smaller counties by area in California, it has a high population density and is growing rapidly due to overflow from the Bay Area. The City of San Joaquin, despite sharing its name with the county, is located in Fresno County. History San Joaquin County was one of the original counties of California, created in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contra Costa County, California
Contra Costa County (; ''Contra Costa'', Spanish for 'Opposite Coast') is a county located in the U.S. state of California, in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,165,927. The county seat is Martinez. It occupies the northern portion of the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area and is primarily suburban. The county's name refers to its position on the other side of the bay from San Francisco. Contra Costa County is included in the San Francisco–Oakland–Berkeley, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. History Pre-human In prehistoric times, particularly the Miocene epoch, portions of the landforms now in the area (then marshy and grassy savanna) were populated by a wide range of now extinct mammals, known in modern times by the fossil remains excavated in the southern part of the county. In the northern part of the county, significant coal and sand deposits were formed in even earlier geologic er ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solano County, California
Solano County () is a county (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, its population was 453,491. The county seat is Fairfield, California, Fairfield. Solano County comprises the Vallejo–Fairfield metropolitan statistical area, which is also included in the San Jose, California, San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, California, Oakland, San Jose–San Francisco–Oakland, CA Combined Statistical Area, combined statistical area. Solano County is the northeastern county in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area region. A portion of the South Campus at the University of California, Davis, is in Solano County. History Solano County was one of the original List of counties in California, counties of California, created in 1850 at the time of statehood. At the request of General Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo, the county was named for Chief Solano of the Suisun people, a Native Americans in the United States, Nati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacramento County, California
Sacramento County () is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 1,585,055. Its county seat is Sacramento, California, Sacramento, which has been the List of capitals in the United States, state capital of California since 1854. Sacramento County is the central county of the Sacramento metropolitan area, Greater Sacramento metropolitan area. The county covers about in the northern portion of the Central Valley (California), Central Valley, on into Gold Country. Sacramento County extends from the low delta lands between the Sacramento River and San Joaquin River, including Suisun Bay, north to about beyond the State Capitol and east into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada (U.S.), Sierra Nevada Mountains. The southernmost portion of Sacramento County has direct access to San Francisco Bay. Since 2010, statewide droughts in California have further strained Sacramento County's water security. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ephemeral Wetland
Ephemerality (from the Greek language, Greek word , meaning 'lasting only one day') is the concept of things being transitory, existing only briefly. Academically, the term ephemeral constitutionally describes a diverse assortment of things and experiences, from digital media to types of streams. "There is no single definition of ephemerality". With respect to unique performances, for example, it has been noted that "[e]phemerality is a quality caused by the ebb and flow of the crowd's concentration on the performance and a reflection of the nostalgic character of specific performances". Because different people may value the passage of time differently, ephemerality may be a relative, perceptual concept: "In brief, what is short-lived may not be the object itself, but the attention we afford it".Ronald Beiner, ''Political Philosophy: What It Is and Why It Matters'' (2014), p. 10. Ephemerality and nature Geographical features An ephemeral stream is that which only exists follo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larva
A larva (; : larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into their next life stage. Animals with indirect development such as insects, some arachnids, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. A larva's appearance is generally very different from the adult form (''e.g.'' caterpillars and butterflies) including different unique structures and organs that do not occur in the adult form. Their diet may also be considerably different. In the case of smaller primitive arachnids, the larval stage differs by having three instead of four pairs of legs. Larvae are frequently adapted to different environments than adults. For example, some larvae such as tadpoles live almost exclusively in aquatic environments but can live outside water as adult frogs. By living in a distinct environment, larvae may be given shelter from predators and reduce competition for resources with the adult population. Animals in the lar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protozoa
Protozoa (: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a polyphyletic group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic debris. Historically, protozoans were regarded as "one-celled animals". When first introduced by Georg Goldfuss, in 1818, the taxon Protozoa was erected as a class within the Animalia, with the word 'protozoa' meaning "first animals", because they often possess animal-like behaviours, such as motility and predation, and lack a cell wall, as found in plants and many algae. This classification remained widespread in the 19th and early 20th century, and even became elevated to a variety of higher ranks, including phylum, subkingdom, kingdom, and then sometimes included within the paraphyletic Protoctista or Protista. By the 1970s, it became usual to require that all taxa be monophyletic (derived from a common ancestor that would also be regarded as protozo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotifer
The rotifers (, from Latin 'wheel' and 'bearing'), sometimes called wheel animals or wheel animalcules, make up a phylum (Rotifera ) of microscopic and near-microscopic Coelom#Pseudocoelomates, pseudocoelomate animals. They were first described by John Harris (writer), Rev. John Harris in 1696, and other forms were described by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1703. Most rotifers are around long (although their size can range from to over ), and are common in freshwater environments throughout the world with a few Seawater, saltwater species. Some rotifers are free swimming and truly planktonic, others move by inchworming along a substrate, and some are Sessility (zoology), sessile, living inside tubes or gelatinous holdfast (biology), holdfasts that are attached to a substrate. About 25 species are colonial (e.g., ''Sinantherina semibullata''), either sessile or planktonic. Rotifers are an important part of the freshwater zooplankton, being a major foodsource and with many specie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bacteria
Bacteria (; : bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one Cell (biology), biological cell. They constitute a large domain (biology), domain of Prokaryote, prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among the first life forms to appear on Earth, and are present in most of its habitats. Bacteria inhabit the air, soil, water, Hot spring, acidic hot springs, radioactive waste, and the deep biosphere of Earth's crust. Bacteria play a vital role in many stages of the nutrient cycle by recycling nutrients and the nitrogen fixation, fixation of nitrogen from the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere. The nutrient cycle includes the decomposition of cadaver, dead bodies; bacteria are responsible for the putrefaction stage in this process. In the biological communities surrounding hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, extremophile bacteria provide the nutrients needed to sustain life by converting dissolved compounds, suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
