About me
I grew up in Colton, California and served six years in the US Air Force. While on active duty, I was stationed throughout the country and deployed overseas several times. I started my academic journey by attending community college before transferring to and graduating from American Military University in 2015 with a B.S. in Environmental Science. In 2017, I earned a second B.S. in Biology (Ecology & Biodiversity) from Cal Poly, Humboldt. I was fortunate to participate in Harvard University’s Summer Research Program in Ecology at Harvard Forest as an undergraduate. While at Harvard Forest, I studied changes in deciduous tree phenology throughout the northeastern United States using community science observations and long-term scientific data. I also spent a summer as a research intern with the National Park Service where I studied climate change impacts on plant and butterfly phenology in subalpine meadows at Mount Rainier National Park.
Research
I will complete my Ph.D. in Plant Biology at UC Riverside in June 2024. For my graduate research, I assessed how invasive plants and fire impact migratory butterflies and native annual wildflowers in California’s coastal sage scrub habitats. This work has inspired me to continue investigating how plant-butterfly interactions are impacted by land-use and global change. For my postdoctoral research, I will study butterfly-plant community recovery in managed systems, butterfly movement ecology using stable isotope analysis, and the impacts of projected habitat suitability changes for butterflies and host plants using species distribution models.
Contact
UC Davis Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Entomology and Nematology
Briggs Hall 380K
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA 95616 USA
Fellowships and Awards
2024 UC Davis Chancellors Postdoctoral Fellowship
2024 NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology
Publications
Saldivar J, Rankin D, & Wilson Rankin E. (2024) Sites dominated by common fiddleneck (Amsinckia menziesii var. intermedia) support diverse plant-pollinator interactions. Plant Ecology link
Saldivar J, Wilson Rankin E. (2024) Struggling to survive: A comparison of Vanessa cardui larval survivorship on putative host plants. Ecosphere link
Saldivar J, Romero A, & Wilson Rankin E. (2002) Community science reveals high diversity of nectaring plants visited by painted lady butterflies (Lepidoptera: Nymphalidae) in California sage scrub, Environmental Entomology link
…more to come