"We have no rapae!"

No rapae today!

That's the latest report from Art Shapiro, distinguished professor of evolution and ecology at the University of California, Davis.

He's sponsoring his annual Butterfly-for-a-Beer Contest and it's Day 13, Friday the 13th. The first person who collects the first (verified) cabbage white butterfly (Pieris rapae) of the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento wins a pitcher of beer or its equivalent.

Shapiro launched the contest in 1972 to draw attention to Pieris rapae and its first flight. The butterfly is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, said Shapiro, who does long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate. "Such studies are especially important to help us understand biological responses to climate change. The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here."

Shapiro traditionally wins his own contest, often finding his quarry near a railroad embankment in West Sacramento,Yolo County. He traveled there today and reported back:

"After a chilly morning, a sunny and seasonably mild (58 F) afternoon in West Sacramento with no wind in the lee of the railroad embankment. Brassica kaber, campestris and tournefortii and Raphanus are blooming, but not heavily yet. A lot of ponding and mud--one has to plod slowly and heavily to avoid slipping!...I stayed through the heat of the day, though I did not expect to find P. rapae out, and I didn't. No Leps (Lepidopterans) at all, and oddly no honey bees; just a variety of Diptera out and about. The outlook to the end of the month looks wet, wet, wet."

UC Davis ecology graduate student Jacob Montgomery won last year, catching a female cabbage white butterfly on Jan. 16 on his lavender plant just outside his front door in west Davis, Yolo County.  Since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

The professor, a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society and the California Academy of Sciences, monitors the butterfly population of Central California and maintains a butterfly website, where he records his research. He is the author of A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions, published in 2007 by the University of California Press.

The cabbage white butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. What does it look like? It's a white butterfly with black dots on the upperside (which may be faint or not visible in the early season). It inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow.

The contest rules include:

• It must be an adult (no caterpillars or pupae) and be captured outdoors.
• It must be brought in alive to the department office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis,  during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data (exact time, date and location of the capture) and your name, address, phone number and/or e-mail. The receptionist will certify that it is alive and refrigerate it. (If you collect it on a weekend or holiday, keep it in a refrigerator; do not freeze. A few days in the fridge will not harm it.)
• Shapiro is the sole judge.

Shapiro, who is in the field more than 200 days of the year, usually returns to his Storer Hall office with the first cabbage white of the year. He has been defeated only four times since 1972. Three winners were his own graduate students: Adam Porter defeated him in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won in the late 1990s.

So, no rapae, no beer. The search continues for the first cabbage white of 2017. Rapae on!

Despite the widespread interest in migrating monarch butterflies, other insects migrate, too.

That's way we were excited to see National Public Radio's Nell Greenfieldboyce generate a recent piece on "Bugs Abound: If You Think the Skies Are Crowded, You Have No Idea."

She touched on a newly published study in the journal Science, which found that more than 3 trillion migrating insects fly over south-central England each year. 

More than 3 trillion!

Greenfieldboyce interviewed Hugh Dingle, UC Davis emeritus professor of entomology (not involved in the study) for the piece, published in late December.

Dingle, author of the popular textbook, Animal Migration: the Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), is one of the world's experts on animal migration.  National Geographic featured Dingle in its cover story on Great Migrations in November 2010.  LiveScience interviewed him for its November 2010 piece on Why Do Animals Migrate?

Dingle agrees that many migrating insects receive little attention. "Certain insects like locusts and the monarch butterfly, have gotten a great deal of attention," he told Greenfieldboyce. "But perhaps because of all that attention on these big charismatic insects, the huge migrations that occur in lots and lots of other insects, all the way down to tiny aphids, are certainly not as well known by the public, and may not even be as well known by scientists."

Indeed, the monarch butterfly is one of those "big charismatic insects."  It's an iconic insect in North America largely because of its long-distance migration to precise overwintering sites in Mexico and subsequent return, Dingle told us last year prior to a UC Davis seminar on monarchs. Short photopriods trigger diapause and fat storage, necessary to support migration "and the butterflies orient using a sun compass synchronized to a circadian rhythm in the antennae. Butterflies head for overwintering sites in North America: Transvolcanics Mountains of central Mexico, and the California Coast, particularly Santa Cruz, Pismo Beach, and Pacific Grove.

And scores of butterfly enthusiasts flock there, too, to admire, photograph and monitor them. It's good to see the increasing human population banding together to help save the declining monarch population.

As for the NPR piece, Greenfieldboyce gave a little press to one of the least publicized insects, the marmalade hoverfly, which she described as a "a small, insignificant-looking creature."

But don't consider the hoverfly "inconsequential." It's not only a long-range migrant that travels at great speeds and for hundreds of kilometers in a single flight, but it's a beneficial bug: it eats aphids and pollinates crops as well as wildflowers. It winters in the Mediterranean but returns to England in the spring.

Check out the paper in Science, "Mass Seasonal Bioflows of High-Flying Insect Migrants," for more information on migrating insects and you'll see why the NPR headlined its piece "Bugs Abound: If You Think the Skies Are Crowded, You Have No Idea."

The researchers' 10-year project of monitoring the migration of large and small insects over the southern United Kingdom yields incredible information. That's why we now know what they know--that 3 trillion of these migrating insects fly the friendly--and not so friendly skies--every year.

It's getting pretty crowded there.

Hear that buzz?

That's the sound of success.

It finally happened. The beleaguered rusty-patched bumble bee, Bombus affinis, is now listed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an endangered species, the first bee in the continental United States to be listed under the Endangered Species Act.

So many folks helped spearhead this project. Bumble bee expert Robbin Thorp, distinguished emeritus professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University) helped sound the alarm.

Thorp co-authored a 2010 petition seeking an endangered status for Bombus affinis. The Xerces Society of Invertebrate Conservation, along with Thorp and others, submitted the petition to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2013. In 2015, agency officials agreed to consider it. In 2016, they proposed protection. Then on Jan. 10, 2017, the Fish and Wildlife Service listed the rusty-patched bumble bee as an endangered species.  (See Xerces press release.)

Other key players in making this all happen included natural history photographer/filmmaker Clay Bolt and his friends at the Day's Edge Productions, which created the award-winning film, A Ghost in the Making: Searching for the Rusty Patched Bumble Bee with support from the Xerces Society and others. The result: nearly 200,000 persons signed a petition seeking endangered status for the bee.

The rusty-patched bumble bee was once found in 28 states in the eastern and upper midwest United States, along with the District of Columbia and two Canadian provinces. Since the late 1990s, however, its population has declined by nearly 90 percent, according to Sarina Jepsen, director of endangered species for the Xerces Society.

"The rusty patched bumble bee is threatened with extinction," Jepsen wrote in the petition. "Possible causes of its decline include pathogens, habitat loss or degradation, pesticide use, and climate change. Reduced genetic diversity, which could be a result of declining, isolated populations caused by any of the aforementioned factors, likely also threatens this species with extinction. Furthermore, existing regulations are wholly inadequate to protect this species."

Jepsen described bumble bees as "iconic pollinators that contribute to our food security and the healthy functioning of our ecosystems."

Enter Clay Bolt who set out to find, photograph and document the critically imperiled bumble bee. He moved from state to state, habitat to habitat, museum to museum, meeting with scientists and conservationists.  Finally, he found the living breathing rusty-patched bumble bee in the University of Wisconsin arboretum. You can see his excitement and learn about his incredible journey in the amazing Ghost in the Making.

Bolt related that he first became aware of the plight of the rusty-patched bumble bee while looking at specimens in the collection at Great Smoky Mountains National Park. "There was a stuffed passenger pigeon in the same room, frozen in time, but no longer among us in nature," he told us. "It was once the most numerous bird on the planet and then it was no more. This has always haunted me. I decided then that I had to do everything in my power to attempt to bring more attention to this beautiful little bee before it went the same way."

With friends from Day's Edge Productions and the Xerces Society, Bolt made the film about the bee, helped develop the petition, and spoke on Capitol Hill and other high-profile events to spotlight its plight. "Through all of this, I kept thinking back to seeing this amazing little animal in the field," Bolt said. "Watching it fly. Witnessing it do what it had been doing for thousands of years. It had no idea that its fate was in our hands."

"I am just so encouraged and grateful for the public's outcry in support of this species," Bolt said. "This was an effort that would have never been possible without so many people working together to see it through. I am grateful that my images played even a small part in this historic occasion. These are the moments that make all of the hours of work and worry worthwhile."

One observation in Ghost in the Making particularly resonates: "We spend so much time and effort making life better for ourselves, the least we can do is make life possible for this bee." The film advocates that we all do our part:  provide flowers, a safe place to nest, and a pesticide-free environment.

How many other bumble bees should be listed as endangered? "That's difficult to answer, mainly due to a lack of good information," said Thorp.  "Most of our bumble bee species seem to be doing well according to our most recent assessments.  But at least one eastern cuckoo bumble bee may be declining because its host bumble bees have declined.  About a quarter of our bumble bees may be at risk, but we need more information.  One that used to be common here in the Central Valley, Bombus sonorus, basically disappeared from our area about a dozen years ago, but it is doing well in the southern part of its range in southern California and Arizona."

Meanwhile the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reviewing three other species of bees for possible inclusion as endangered. They include Franklin's bumble bee, the western bumble bee and the yellow-banded bumble bee.

Thorp, who has been monitoring Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, since 1998 (See Dec. 12 Bug Squad), hasn't seen the bumble bee in 10 years within its five-county range of southern Oregon and northern California. He doesn't want to say the "E" word--extinct. Not yet. He thinks this may be the year he'll find it.

This week, however, is a cause for celebration. The rusty-patched bumble bee is now an endangered species, in danger of extinction, and we can now begin the process to protect it and recover it.

Christian Nansen is an entomologist on the move.

Devoted to research, teaching and public service, he'll speak next week on “Urban Food Production in the Digital Age—Local Empowerment and Sustainability” as part of the UC Davis Community Book Project, which focuses on award-winning writer, activist and academic Raj Patel's work, Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.

Nansen, an agricutural entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will deliver his presentation from 12 noon to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 18 in the Memorial Union's Garrison Room, UC Davis campus.

Sustainable pest management solutions in agricultural systems is a key component of Nansen's research, and he and his team focus on deployment of drones and imaging systems to optimize stress detection of pest outbreaks. In his leisure time, he is converting his back and front yards in Davis "into an urban farming system."

In his Jan. 18 seminar, Nansen will cite several important reasons why urban and suburban citizens "should increase their level of self-sufficiency and resilience when it comes to food production."

In many respects, Nansen is a citizen of the world.

Born and educated in Denmark, Nansen received his master's degree in biology from the University of Copenhagen in 1995 and his doctorate in zoology from the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Denmark in 2000. He accepted positions in Portugal, Benin, United States, UK and Australia before joining the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in January 2015 as an assistant professor who focuses on insect ecology and remote sensing. His international experience also includes being an international exchange student at the University of Lisbon, Portugal and a visiting professor at Northwest A&F University, Yangling, China.

As part of his undergraduate studies, Nansen took time off to travel to Brazil to write a book about sustainable agriculture in rainforest areas. “In this process," he related, "I learned about the potential of honey bees as both pollinators of crops but also as ‘promoters' more broadly of sustainable agricultural development."

Nansen wrote his master's thesis on honey bees: “The Apis mellifera Forging Response to the Pollen Availability in Cistus salvifolius.” The plant is also known as a sage-leaved rock rose or Gallipoli rose. He conducted field work in Portugal involving pollen identification, observations on daily flight and foraging activity, and modeling of pollen availability.

For his doctorate, his interest turned to the larger grain borer, a serious pest of stored maize and dried cassava roots. He wrote his dissertation on “The Spatial Distribution and Potential Hosts of the Larger Grain Borer, Prostephanus truncatus (Horn) (Coleoptera: Bostrichidae), in a forest in Benin, West Africa.” His research involved stored product insect ecology, field trapping with pheromone traps, experimental work on pheromone production, vegetation analysis, satellite image interpretation, laboratory infestation of potential breeding substrates, and histological studies.

Nansen recalled that his childhood exposures to international scientists played a major role in his choice of a career. His father, a professor in veterinary parasitology, entertained many colleagues in the family home. “And my mother cooked the food! This is probably the main reasons why I enjoy both cooking and why my career has been so international.”

“Even though Denmark is a very small country (5 million people),” Nansen said, “it has been at the forefront of agricultural research and production for many decades. And growing up, my father took me on field trips and exposed me to farming systems.” In fact, young Christian earned his weekly allowance in the chicken business: he sold eggs to neighbors.

In an earlier interview, he expressed delight at seeing a “steadily growing appreciation for the origin and quality of the food we eat," noting that "today, in the 21st century, the technologies deployed in modern agriculture are so advanced and similar to the cutting-edge technologies in other fields. Those technologies require skill sets beyond what most people may be aware of. Use of drones, remote sensing, GIS models, mathematical models of weather, crop physiology and soil dynamics, models to optimize input requirements and minimize economic risks, phone apps to optimize applications of agro-chemicals – these are all skill sets and approaches we are using as part of studying food production systems and developing innovative and reliable tools to be used within the agricultural sector.”

On Thursday, Jan. 19, the day after the UC Davis Community Book Project presentation, Nansen will give a seminar on  "Droplets of Evolutionary Biology: Theoretical Modeling of Resistance Evolution to Insecticides" from 4:10 to 5:30 p.m.  in 100 Hunt Hall as part of the UC Davis Evolution and Ecology winter-quarter seminars.

He is also coordinating the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars. As part of those seminars, he'll speak Wednesday, March 1 from 4:10 to 5 p.m. on "Reflectance Profiling as a Tool to Study Insects and Other Objects" in Room 122, Briggs Hall.

All the presentations are free and open to the public.