- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Doctoral student Grace Horne of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is coordinating a City Nature Challenge Bioblitz on Saturday, April 27 from 8 to 10 p.m. in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden. The family-friendly event, funded by the UC Davis Center for Citizen and Community Science, is open to all interested persons. "All ages are welcome," Horne said.
The nature challengers will meet at the Wyatt Deck, located at the west end of the Redwood Grove, across Arboretum Drive from the Wyatt Pavilion Theater. Registration is underway on this Eventbrite link:
https://iluvbugs2024.eventbrite.com.
"It's perfect for nature enthusiasts of all ages and experience levels,” Horne said, adding that it promises to be “an exciting opportunity to connect with nature and appreciate the beauty of bugs.”
Dubbed the #iluvbugs City Nature Challenge Arboretum BioBlitz and billed as "illuminating biodiversity search," the event will be an extension of Horne's first-ever "glowing bugs" exhibit (showcasing plant-insect interactions under ultraviolet light) at Briggs Hall during the 110th annual campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day on Saturday, April 20.
Bioblitz participants "will take photos of plants and animals--especially bugs!--and upload these observations to the community science platform, iNaturalist,” she said. “All you need to bring is a smartphone or a photo-taking device. We will have a table with small lenses, bug boxes, field guides, insect specimens, and more to help you make observations of wildlife. Local experts will also be available to assist in identifying the wildlife.”
The bioblitz is affiliated with the City Nature Challenge Sacramento. CNC is an annual worldwide competition among some 500 cities with the goal of documenting the most biodiversity within a four-day period. "Participants use the iNaturalist app and platform to photograph, catalog, identify, and organize observations of wildlife in their area," according to the CNC website. "From April 26-29, any iNaturalist photo uploaded within the Sacramento Region will count towards our goal of 10,000 observations."
"We are looking to make as many quality observations as we can during the UC Davis Bioblitz," said Horne, who is marking her second consecutive year hosting a bioblitz in the Arboretum.
Participants are asked to bring a flashlight, comfortable walking shoes, insect repellent, a camera/cell phone, binoculars (if desired), a water bottle, and weather-appropriate clothing.
Meineke Lab. Horne, who joined the UC Davis entomology graduate program in 2021 and studies with urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor Emily Meineke, is a 2021 graduate of Colby College, Waterville, ME, where she received her bachelor's degree in biology and environmental science, magna cum laude. Her thesis: "Reduced Performance of Ash-Specialist Caterpillars on Non-Native, Cultivated Oleaceous Plants.”
At UC Davis, Horne studies "plant-insect interactions using long-term data—primarily expert-collected observations and natural history collections. "Currently, I am investigating how moth populations in Davis and Stebbins Cold Canyon have changed over the past 30 or so years using data collected by John de Benedictis of the Bohart Museum of Entomology."
She is an alumna of The Caterpillar Lab in Marlborough, NH. "At The Caterpillar Lab, we brought together caterpillars and their host plants to teach about species interactions, conservation, and ecology," Horne said. "Our work brought us to museums, libraries, 4th grade classrooms, farmers' markets, etc."
Horne co-chairs the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Picnic Day Committee with forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey. This year all of the department's exhibits and activities, including those hosted by the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will be at Briggs Hall.
Her Picnic Day exhibit, “I IUV Bugs," is her brainchild. The project is primarily designed by the Meineke lab, "especially (doctoral student) Marielle Hansel Friedman," Horne said. "We will have plants from the UC Davis Arboretum Teaching Nursery and local/pet-trade arthropods which glow under ultraviolet light. With this exhibit, we seek to highlight the interplay between light, color, and species interactions."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Scientists estimate that only 10 percent of the eggs and 'cats survive to adulthood.
They don't "survive" at all in California classrooms.
California classrooms used to showcase the metamorphosis of the monarch--from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to adult-- but no more. If you live in California, you're not allowed to collect or rear monarchs without a scientific permit. And scientific permits are difficult to obtain.
According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife: "A Scientific Collecting Permit (SCP) is required to handle wild monarchs in California including for educational purposes. It is unlawful to collect, remove from the wild and/or captively rear monarchs in California without an SCP, per California Code of Regulations (CCR), Title 14, section 650.
Admire them in the wild, but legally, you can't collect or rear them.
As a child growing up in the San Jose area, entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis, "raised and released many, many dozens of monarchs, as most empty lots were filled with vast stands of narrow-leaf milkweed, and we could easily gather caterpillars and keep them fed and healthy until they matured. This was an extraordinary thing to be able to watch--the final instar of the larva molting to change to the beautiful chrysalis and then seeing the butterfly develop within the chrysalis and hatch. We would hold it on our finger as the wings expanded and, finally, the butterfly flew away."
The Bohart Museum has some seven drawers of monarch specimens. "With around 60 specimens per drawer that could amount to nearly 400 plus specimens (some drawers are not full," he said. The collection also includes nearly-white monarch specimens from Hawaii.
In their book, The Lives of Butterflies: A Natural History of Our Planet's Butterfly Life (Princeton University Press, 2024), authors David James and David Lohman point out that "...our children are the future and it is they who will determine the future of butterflies. If a child finds a caterpillar, let them keep it, feed it, and watch it metamorphose.They will remember the experience for the rest of their life, and it will instill in them a love and appreciation for lives smaller than their own."
James is an entomologist and associate professor at Washington State University who researches migratory monarchs, and Lohman is a biologist, professor and department chair, City College of New York.
“It is important that we do not try to excessively regulate to conserve butterfly populations," they wrote. "We need people to be part of the process and be the power on the ground behind conservation programs.”
They quote Lincoln Brower (1931-2018), a renowned Lepidopterist educated at Princeton and Yale universities: “Butterflies are treasures, like great works of art. Should we not value them as much as the beauty of Picasso's art or the music of Mozart or the Beatles?"
Robert Michael Pyle, founder of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and colleague David L. Wagner, advocated "Keep Nets in the Hands of Kids--and Others" in a piece in the fall edition of the Lepidopterists' Society newsletter. They asked:
"Is the coup de grace for children's face-to-face fascination with small-scale life to be delivered now by well-intentioned but ill-considered regulation?"
Smith declared that the regulation will not "help" with the conservation of monarchs, and that he hopes it will be reversed or modified.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"I took a gap decade. During that time I had a series of eclectic jobs and life experiences. Those experiences proved extremely useful during my PhD."
Lamas, a former commercial beekeeper in New Hampshire, will share his life and research experiences at a seminar hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, on Monday, April 15.
His seminar, titled "How Doing a PhD Is Like Building a House," begins at 4:10 p.m. in Room 122 of Briggs Hall. It also will be on Zoom. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/9 5882849672
"This presentation describes how the intersection of life experiences and my PhD led to creative and generative research that led to large discovery in disease transmission dynamics in collapsing honey bee colonies," Lamas says.
A first-generation college student, Lamas received his bachelor's degree in biology in 2008 from Colby-Sawyer College, a private college in New London, New Hampshire. He obtained his doctorate in entomology at the University of Maryland in 2022.
He credits his mentor, USDA-ARS research entomologist Jay Evans of the Bee Research Laboratory, Beltsville, MD., with encouraging him to apply to become an Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) fellow with the USDA-ARS Research Participation Program.
Lamas, known as "Dr. Zac," has presented programs on his research and beekeeping management to state beekeeping associations in California, Texas, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, Missouri, West Virginia, and Washington State, among others, and has addressed the American Beekeeping Federation, American Honey Producers' Association and Apimondia. Globally, he has delivered presentations to Apimondia, Montreal, Canada, and to the Eurbee 8th Congress of Apidology, Ghent, Belgium.
Lamas rears open-mated carniolans. "These are docile, productive bees, that I produce for my own experiments," he writes on his website. "We can literally pet our bees during experiments. This level of docility allows us to work intimately with the bees, sitting in front of open colonies for long periods to collect samples."
Lamas is a noted researcher on varroa mites. "Who do Varroa really feed on? Check out this presentation where I share a new finding of Varroa destructor I carried out three years of research, and along with collaborators (including my family!) individually inspected over 30,000 bees to describe the distribution of Varroa inside a colony." (See YouTube presentation.)
Lamas' recent publications involve varroa mites, infectious diseases and pesticides:
- Zachary S. Lamas, Eugene V. Ryabov, David J. Hawthorne, Jay D. Evans, "Oversharing by honey bees and the spread of viruses," bioRxiv 2022.05.15.492017; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.05.15.492017
- Ryabov EV, Posada-Florez F, Rogers C, Lamas ZS, Evans JD, Chen Y and Cook SC (2022) "The vectoring competence of the mite Varroa destructor for deformed wing virus of honey bees is dynamic and affects survival of the mite," Frontiers in Insect Science. 2:931352. DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2022.931352
- Posada-Florez, F., Lamas, Z.S., Hawthorne, D.J. et al. "Pupal cannibalism by worker honey bees contributes to the spread of deformed wing virus," Scientific Reports 11, 8989 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-88649-y
- Alger, S.A.1, Burnham, P.A., Lamas, Z.S2, Brody, A.K., Richardson, L.R., (2017). "Home sick: impacts of migratory beekeeping on honey bee (Apis mellifera) pests, pathogens, and colony size," PeerJ 6:e5812; DOI 10.7717/peerj.5812
- Kirsten S. Traynor, Dennis vanEngelsdorp, Zachary S. Lamas, "Social disruption: Sublethal pesticides in pollen lead to Apis mellifera queen events and brood loss," Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety, Volume 214, 2021, 112105, ISSN 0147-6513, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.112105
Honey bee scientist Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is coordinating the department's seminars for the 2023-24 academic year. For any Zoom technical issues, he may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu.
The complete list of spring quarter seminars is here.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
What insects did you see during the Solar Eclipse, dubbed "The Great North American Eclipse?" And what were they doing?
In some parts of North America, as the moon passed between the earth and sun, folks saw a total solar eclipse. But here in Solano County, California, totality it was not.
Partial.
We watched the Great North America Eclipse as the moon took a tiny bite out of the sun.
And then a queen bumble bee buzzed into our pollinator garden just as the moon helped itself to another bite.
Bite of the moon or bite of the bumble bee?
Game over.
The bumble bee won (well, just for a few minutes) and then we returned to the solar eclipse.
The bumble bee appeared to be a Bombus californicus. And she was hungry.
If she had experienced a total solar eclipse, she may have immediately returned to her nest: "It's dark. Day over."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Wildflower Center, the state's botanical garden and arboretum, showcases bluebonnets, lots of bluebonnets. You'll see scores of other floral species, too, and maybe....well, rattlesnakes. You're told that "Fire ants, poison ivy, cacti and snakes are probable in this natural environment."
You're in Texas, after all.
At the entrance to the courtyard, you may spot Athena, the Wildflower Center's resident great-horned owl (Bubo virginianus) nesting there, and you may see her mate.
There are rules (etiquette and policies). "The Eyes of Texas" are upon you. No pets (service animals only). No open-carry guns. No drones. No smoking. No outside alcohol. No bicycles, scooters, balloons, confetti or glitter.
What kind of wildlife will you see? Well, besides the rattlers and the owls, you may spot hummingbirds, bees, butterflies, roadrunners, rabbits, squirrels, turtles, scorpions, and more. "In every case, please be aware of your surroundings and respect these wild creatures' space."
You must follow photo and video policies as well. If you want to capture images of the butterflies, be sure to take a long macro lens (which I didn't do), as the butterflies always seem to be fluttering 20 feet away from you and your camera.
The rules enable ALL visitors to enjoy the wildflower center, and an opportunity to see the nearly 900 species of Texas native plants.
But ah, the bluebonnets...The butterflies...Nature at its finest.
Entomologist Mike Quinn, curatorial associate, University of Texas, relates on the Wildflower Center website that the butterfly species include:
- Little yellows (Pyrisitialisa)
- Sleepy orange (Abaeis nicippe)
- Southern dogface (Zerene cesonia)
- Cloudless sulphur (Phoebis sennae)
Also of entomological interest is a sign depicting insects and their habitat that asks: "Who's been here?" Images feature a chewed leaf, rolled leaf, leaf galls, a spittlebug and a leaf miner. The text includes:
- "This is a chewed leaf. There are different insects that like to eat leaves. Caterpillars and grasshoppers are just a couple that love eating leaves."
- "This is a rolled leaf. The insect has wrapped a leaf around itself for protection and also so it can eat the leaf without being seen by predators. A leaf-rolling weevil likes to eat oak leaves."
But ah, the bluebonnets...The butterflies...Nature at its finest.
As Lady Bird Johnson said at a speech at Yale University on Oct. 9, 1967: "The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become."