Looking for Nature in LA

2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 122-128
Author(s):  
Lila Higgins ◽  
Emily Hartop
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Geographic Variations ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Science Project ◽  
Citizen Science Project ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
The City ◽  
Over Time

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is reconnecting to the city around it and in the process discovering a vital role for itself in the life of the city and its future. This article’s authors both work for the museum. Lila Higgins describes a Los Angeles teeming with nature, often hidden in plain sight. Emily Hartop describes the museum’s ongoing citizen science project BioSCAN, which is collecting insect specimens around the city on an unprecedented scale to understand not just the full array of insect species living in the city but using geographic variations and changes over time to paint a more complete picture of the city’s ecologies.

scholarly journals James Hamilton McLean: The master of the Gastropoda

Zoosymposia ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 14-43
Author(s):  
LINDSEY T. GROVES ◽  
DANIEL L. GEIGER ◽  
JANN E. VENDETTI ◽  
EUGENE V. COAN
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Current Status ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Type Information

A biography of the late James H. McLean, former Curator of Malacology at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County is provided. It is complemented with a full bibliography and list of 344 taxa named by him and co-authors (with type information and current status), as well as 40 patronyms.

Mold Removal and Rehousing of the Ichthyology and Herpetology Skeletal Collections at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County

Copeia ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 2008 (4) ◽  
pp. 737-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine E. Thacker ◽  
Richard F. Feeney ◽  
Neftali A. Camacho ◽  
Jeffrey A. Seigel
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Skeletal Collections

scholarly journals AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS IN MEDIEVAL MOSCOW (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXCAVATIONS IN THE MOSCOW KREMLIN IN 2016-2018)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Е.Ю. Лебедева ◽  
А.Ю. Сергеев
Keyword(s):  
Bread Wheat ◽  
Crop Plants ◽  
Agricultural Products ◽  
Exotic Plant ◽  
European Cities ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
The City ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Archaeological Excavations ◽  
Over Time

В статье представлены результаты археоботанических исследований в Московском Кремле и обсуждается проблема использования растений жителями города с особым акцентом на потреблении зерновой продукции. Материалы рассматриваются по двум хронологическим выборкам (XII - перв. пол. XIII в. и втор. пол. XIII - XV в.), что позволяет проследить динамику изменения археоботанических спектров. Выделяются три специфические черты, характеризующие коллекцию зерновых в Москве. Во-первых, высокая насыщенность зерном культурного слоя во-вторых, стабильно высокий показатель доли ржи на протяжении столетий (ок. 70 ) и, в-третьих, остающийся непонятным факт сокращения на 10 доли овса в поздней выборке. Последнее, по мнению авторов, противоречит логике развития города, требующей увеличения фуражных запасов для лошадей - основного транспортного средства средневековья. Авторы приходят к выводу, что при отсутствии или скудости находок экзотических растений, выступающих маркерами элитного питания в европейских городах, в средневековой Руси в этом качестве могут интерпретироваться обычные зерновые культуры, в частности - мягкая пшеница. The paper presents the results of archaeobotanical studies in the Moscow Kremlin and discusses the use of plants by the city residents with a focus on consumption of crops. The analysis is based on two chronological selections (the 12th - first half of the 13th centuries and the first half of the 13th - 15th centuries) it gives an insight into the changes over time of archaeobotanical spectra. Three specific features characterizing the crop grains in Moscow are singled out. Firstly, abundance of crop plants in the occupation layers secondly, consistently high values of the rye share in total crops throughout centuries (around 70 ) and, thirdly, the reduction in the share of oats by 10 in the later sample for some inexplicable reasons. In the view of the authors, the latter fact contradicts the logical development of the city that required increase in forage reserves for horses which was the main animal for transportation in the medieval times. The authors come to the conclusion that in the absence or scarcity of exotic plant finds used as markers of luxury food in European cities, common grain crops such as bread wheat can be used as elite food indicator in Medieval Russia.

scholarly journals New Late Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic decapod crustaceans from California, USA: implications for the origination of taxa in the eastern North Pacific

2003 ◽  
Vol 72 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 165-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Torrey G. Nyborg ◽  
Francisco J. Vega ◽  
Harry F. Filkorn
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Late Cretaceous ◽  
North Pacific ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Pivotal Role ◽  
Decapod Crustaceans ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Early Cenozoic

Recent revision of Cretaceous and Paleocene brachyurans in the collections of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has revealed the presence of several new species. Based upon these fossils and their ages, it is evident that they played a pivotal role in the origination and subsequent dispersal of decapod crustaceans within the eastern North Pacific.

scholarly journals Urban Nature Gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County attract “wildlife spectacle” of insect pollinators

Zoosymposia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
EMILY A. HARTOP ◽  
ELIZABETH LONG ◽  
CAROL BORNSTEIN ◽  
LISA GONZALEZ ◽  
BRIAN V. BROWN
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Natural History ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Natural Habitat ◽  
Natural History Museum ◽  
Insect Fauna ◽  
History Museum ◽  
Natural Site ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Flower Flies

The newly-constructed Nature Gardens at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (California, USA) were purposefully built to attract wildlife. In this study we wanted to find out to what extent this manufactured environment is successful in attracting native insect fauna to the urban core of the city when compared to the surrounding neighborhoods or natural areas on the periphery of Los Angeles. To determine this, a one-year Malaise trap catch from the Nature Gardens was compared with samples from four neighboring sites within a five-kilometer radius, as well as a site adjacent to natural habitat located sixteen kilometers away. Our analysis focused on the diversity and abundance of three pollinator groups: bees, flower flies and butterflies contrasted with a single non-pollinator group: scuttle flies.        Our findings show that the Nature Gardens support greater abundance and diversity than any of the nearby sites or the natural site for all pollinator taxa examined. In contrast, the natural site supported much higher abundance and diversity of the non-pollinator scuttle flies when compared to the Nature Gardens. Calculated evenness of all taxa was lower in the Nature Gardens than at the natural site and Shannon Diversity indices were highest in the Nature Gardens for flower flies and butterflies, but lower in the Nature Gardens than at the natural site for bees and scuttle flies. These results indicate that biodiversity in an urban environment can be selectively manipulated through management of green spaces, but may not duplicate the communities found in natural spaces. Rather, targeted management (through plantings, ground cover and other substrates, watering, pest management techniques, etc.) can increase fauna predictively to create a “wildlife spectacle” of charismatic microfauna.

“An Honest But Fearless Fighter”: The Adversarial Ideal of Public Defenders in 1930s and 1940s Los Angeles

2018 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 619-666
Author(s):  
Sara Mayeux
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
West Coast ◽  
Los Angeles County ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Public Defender ◽  
Public Defenders ◽  
Downtown Los Angeles ◽  
The City

Early one Sunday in 1948, Frederic Vercoe set out from his home in San Marino, California, for a speaking engagement in downtown Los Angeles. Perhaps he took the Arroyo Seco Parkway, which had opened for drivers 8 years before, linking the city more tightly with its “vast agglomerate of suburbs.” Although the roads may have changed, Vercoe had been making some version of this commute for decades. He had recently retired after a long career with the Los Angeles County Public Defender—13 years as a deputy, followed by 19 years as head of the office—and now maintained a small private law practice downtown. Many mornings, Vercoe would have had business at the Hall of Justice, the ten-story box of “gray California granite” that housed the jails and courtrooms. On this particular morning, he was headed instead to Clifton's Cafeteria at Seventh Street and Broadway. Perhaps, as he drove the dozen miles west into the city, he admired the “geraniums, cosmos, sweet peas, asters and marigolds” that lined the “gardens, parkways, and driveways,” or perhaps he was used to the foliage by now. Vercoe had lived in California for more than 30 years, making him, by West Coast standards, a real “old-timer.”

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