Different species of bees exhibit a range of social complexity from solitary to highly social. For example, blueberry bees are solitary while honey bees have large highly structured colonies. A new study by Dr. Karen Kapheim and colleagues compared ten bee species representing the spectrum of social complexity in order to discover the underlying genomic basis for the evolution and elaboration of social structure. The research discovered that there are multiple pathways toward sociality, but the evolution of social complexity always involves an increase in genomic complexity.
This study was published in Science last week, and the authors asked me to illustrate the species represented in the study. Illustrating these species involved research into the behavior and social structures of each species. Some of the solitary bees pollinate only specific flowers while the social bees have fascinating behaviors associated with their queens or honey pots. I incorporated some of these particularities into each illustration. The paper can currently be found online and will be published in print later this year.
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The Ventana Wilderness Alliance (VWA) is an organization that strives to protect and restore the native biodiversity of the public lands along the Big Sur coast. Living in Monterey, I am lucky to be able to hike and camp in the vast Ventana Wilderness, thanks to the efforts of this organization. When they asked me to paint the cover for the spring newsletter, I thought this would be a nice way to say thanks for all that the VWA does.
Much of the work that VWA volunteers do involves restoring native seacliff buckwheat (Eriogonum parvifolium). This plant is an essential part of the critically endangered Smith's blue butterfly's life history. A strict mutualism exists between the butterfly (Euphilotes enoptes smithi) and buckwheat. The butterfly larvae feed exclusively on the buckwheat and adult butterflies return to pollinate the buckwheat. VWA volunteers preserve buckwheat populations on the Big Sur coast in order to provide the necessary habitat to sustain and hopefully increase populations of the Smith's blue butterfly. Here you can find a link to the VWA Spring Newsletter. For volunteer opportunities and information about the Ventana Wilderness, check out their website http://www.ventanawild.org/. Below are progress photos from painting this image. I included the female (bottom), male (top), and underside (middle) of the butterfly. Every year, the California chapter of the Guild of Natural Science Illustrators puts on an exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History. This year, I am excited to announce that two of my paintings are on display in the show. Stop by the museum to see beautiful artwork by California's incredible science and nature artists. Where: Santa Cruz Museum of Natural History 1305 East Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz, CA 95062 When: April 10 - June 21, 2015 Link: http://santacruzmuseum.org/uncategorized/the-art-of-nature/ Poster art for this year's show by the talented Fiona MacLean. Check out her work at http://www.fionaleestudio.com/
Come on down to Pacific Grove this Friday (tomorrow!) for a wonderful night of art, open galleries, live music, wine, and food. This Art Walk will feature a number of Monterey's scientific illustrators, including myself. I will have a table set up outside of Sotheby's on Lighthouse Ave. Stop by and check out the art and chat with the artists!
Happy Earth Day! Come celebrate this weekend at the Point Reyes Birding and Nature Festival.
Point Reyes is a really cool place both geologically and biologically. Located north of San Francisco, this oddly-shaped peninsula sits on the Pacific plate while the land to the east of the peninsula sits on the North American plate. Point Reyes has traveled up the California coast along the San Andreas Fault and continues to move northward. Point Reyes is home to a huge diversity of birds and marine life. This weekend, the Environmental Action Committee of West Marin will be hosting a birding and nature festival full of birding expeditions with the experts, elephant seal watching trips, tidepooling, and field sketching. Stop by on Saturday, April 26 and say hi! I will be setting up a booth to sell my artwork, cards, and pendants (and will probably sketch a few birds while I'm up there). Hope to see you there! http://www.pointreyesbirdingfestival.org/site/ I just completed a small painting of a Texas bluebonnet with two blue cornflowers. The painting is for a person visiting Texas from Germany, and the person who commissioned this piece asked for flowers that would represent both places. I thought it would be fun to show a slideshow of the progress photos I took along the way.
Two of my drawings are now part of a new interpretive trail guide for the University of California Natural Reserve System (UCNRS) Granite Mountain research center. I just received the final trail guide in the mail, and it turned out really great! Many thanks to Tasha La Doux, Assistant Director of the research center and Keith Gaddis, my good friend and supporter! The trail guide takes visitors through the diversity of animals and plants found in this beautiful Mojave Desert habitat, including the tent caterpillar and tarantula hawk wasp. Garland Ranch Regional Park is one of my favorite places to hike in the Monterey Bay Area. The park has beautiful hilly oak forests, winding streams, and even a patch of redwoods. It is also home to a huge diversity of wildflowers that pop up in the springtime. To celebrate the grand opening of the park's newly remodeled visitor's center, the park is putting on a juried wildflower show featuring artwork by local artists. Two of my paintings will be part of the show! Stop by the new visitor's center on Earth Day, April 19th, for the grand re-opening and start of the show. The artwork will be up through August 10th, 2014. Piperia transversa (left) and Piperia michaelii (right) are two species of native orchid that grow at Garland Ranch. Piperia orchids, or rein orchids, have tubers buried underground and very small inconspicuous leaves. The plants depend on symbiotic relationships with mycorrhizal fungi, which extract nutrients that would be otherwise unavailable to the orchids. These orchids are difficult to spot most of the year, with the exception of spring and summer when they send up a single spike of flowers to attract nocturnal moth pollinators.
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