UC Davis ecologist and EERREC mentor Rachel Vannette has isolated and described two new species of bacteria from flowers that grow at the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden  and the UC Davis Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve. One of these bacteria, Acinetobacter pollinis (isolated from the California bee plant, Scrophularia californica at Stebbins) seems to depend on pollen for growth. The other, Acinetobacter rathckeae, named after pioneering plant ecologist, Beverly Rathcke, grows on the California fuschia, Epilobium canum.  

Vannette has used the Arboretum's plantings of E. canum as an outdoor laboratory in an undergraduate course that provides students with an opportunity to participate in ongoing research.

"We love and appreciate our reserves and natural areas on campus: they are an awesome source of unexplored biodiversity and really interesting biology.” 

-- Rachel Vannette

For details, see the article by Kathy Keatley Garvey. Vannette conducted the research as part of an international team and published the work in the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology. See https://doi.org/10.1099/ijsem.0.004783.