This is the first of two newly installed murals located by the UC Davis Arboretum's Plant Nursery that will be celebrated at the grand opening at 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 during the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey

DAVIS, CA (MPG) - Two newly installed large-scale murals located behind the UC Davis Arboretum's Plant Nursery on Garrod Drive will be unveiled and celebrated at a grand opening at 3 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21 during the 15th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day, which showcases 12 museums or collections across campus.

Directing the mural project: urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program. 

The murals are the work of her students in her entomology class, "Art, Science and the World of Insects," and UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Diane Ullman, the emerita director and co-founder of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, and volunteers.

Some 84 students helped on each of the murals, or 168 in total.  

"The two murals are the first half of a 4-mural project displaying a cross-section of California’s diversity, spanning from the coast to the Sierras," Meineke said. "The murals being unveiled are of the coast and the Central Valley. They are 15’ by 5’ large format, high-relief pieces, each made by one quarter of ENT 001 students."

Meineke's research project, Climate Adaptation Living Lab (CALL), graces the front of the murals, and illustrates how relationships between insects and plants will shift as the climate changes.

The plant palette is comprised of low-water, pollinator favorites, including: Sneezeweed, Helenium puberulum; Mugwort, Artemisia douglasiana; Black sage, Salvia mellifera; Common snowberry, Symphoricarpos albus var. Laevigatus, a UC Davis Arboretum All-Star; and Rock phacelia, Phacelia californica.