- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Williams will receive an award of $25,000 to be used in support of his research, teaching and public service activities. He will serve as a Chancellor's Fellow until July 1, 2020, Katehi said.
The program, established in 2000 to honor the achievements of outstanding faculty members early in their careers, is funded in part by the Davis Chancellor's Club and the Annual Fund of UC Davis.
His research focuses on the ecology and evolution of bees and other pollinator insects and their interactions with flowering plants, especially in light of changing landscapes. His work is particularly timely given concern over the global decline in bees and other pollinators.
Colleagues praise him for being a gifted scientist doing groundbreaking fundamental research and as an effective communicator of research findings to California agriculture, especially the almond industry.
Williams joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009 and received tenure as an associate professor in 2013. He received his doctorate in evolution and ecology from State University of New York, Stony Brook.
More information on the Fellows, from Dateline
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The paper on bee immunity and toxin metabolism was published Nov. 9 in Scientific Reports, part of the Nature Publishing Group.
“First, the results suggest that forager bees may use antimicrobial peptides—short sequences of amino acids with general activity-- to reduce microbial growth in stored food resources,” said Rachel Vannette of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “This would be a largely unrecognized way that bees protect honey and potentially other stored resources from microbial spoilage. Second, this work shows that forager bees produce toxin-degrading enzymes in nectar-processing tissues.”
“This may allow forager bees to degrade many different kinds of compounds in nectar, before it is stored,” Vannette said. “Bees also vary in their ability to do this—foragers have a greater ability to degrade a variety of compounds than nurses. This may have implications for hive health and management.”
"Nice paper,” said Gene Robinson, director of the Institute for Genomic Biology and Swanlund Chair of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, who was not involved in the research. “It had been well known that the division of labor in a honey bee colony is supported by extensive differences in brain gene expression between bees that perform different jobs. This new research shows nicely that this genomic differentiation extends beyond the brain; different complements of active genes in a variety of tissues make each bee better suited for the job it needs to perform."
The journal article, titled “Forager Bees (Apis mellifera) Highly Express Immune and Detoxification Genes in Tissues Associated with Nectar Processing,” is the work of senior author/assistant professor Brian Johnson of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and co-authors Abbas Mohamed, graduate student researcher in the Johnson lab and a member of the Pharmacology and Toxicology Group, and assistant professor Vannette, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology this fall after serving a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. At Stanford, Vannette examined the role of nectar chemistry in community assembly of yeasts and plant-pollinator interactions.
Johnson, whose research interests include animal behavior, evolution, theoretical biology and genomics, recently began long-term research on the honey bee immune system and the causes and consequences of economically important diseases /syndromes such as colony collapse disorder.
Mohamed, who has researched honey bees since 2011, is currently focusing on pesticide detoxification as a part of his master's degree research. "Honey bees have always fascinated me,” Mohamed said, “and there is nothing more exciting than to be at the edge of discovery, learning new things, and contributing to the field of our understanding of these amazing creatures.”
The team plans to follow up with functional assays to examine the potential of these gene products to (1) reduce microbial growth and (2) degrade a variety of natural and synthetic compounds.
The abstract:
“Pollinators, including honey bees, routinely encounter potentially harmful microorganisms and phytochemicals during foraging. However, the mechanisms by which honey bees manage these potential threats are poorly understood. In this study, we examine the expression of antimicrobial, immune and detoxification genes in Apis mellifera and compare between forager and nurse bees using tissue-specific RNA-seq and qPCR. Our analysis revealed extensive tissue-specific expression of antimicrobial, immune signaling, and detoxification genes. Variation in gene expression between worker stages was pronounced in the mandibular and hypopharyngeal gland (HPG), where foragers were enriched in transcripts that encode antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) and immune response. Additionally, forager HPGs and mandibular glands were enriched in transcripts encoding detoxification enzymes, including some associated with xenobiotic metabolism. Using qPCR on an independent dataset, we verified differential expression of three AMP and three P450 genes between foragers and nurses. High expression of AMP genes in nectar-processing tissues suggests that these peptides may contribute to antimicrobial properties of honey or to honey bee defense against environmentally-acquired microorganisms. Together, these results suggest that worker role and tissue-specific expression of AMPs, and immune and detoxification enzymes may contribute to defense against microorganisms and xenobiotic compounds acquired while foraging.”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Professor Karl Kjer, newly appointed Schlinger Chair of Systematic Entomology in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and a co-founder of an international insect phylogentics team, will deliver one of the 20 “Premier Presentations” at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, set Nov. 15-18 in Minneapolis.
Kjer, with colleagues from China and Germany, will discuss the 1KITE or the 1000 Insect Transcription Evolution project. This project involved creating a database of transcriptomes or all the genes expressed in an organism. The team developed state-of-the-art methods to analyze genetic data from the DNA of modern insects, and calibrate DNA “clocks” with fossil records. They then used massive super computers to estimate the pattern, and timing of insect evolution.
Following the ESA presentation on “The 1KITE Initiative: Past, Present and Future,” Kjer will be interviewed onsite for a 2-3 minute video that will be posted online.
“By necessity, the project was split into three phases, the first of which, involving the analysis of 1478 genes from 144 species, has been published,” Kjer writes in his ESA abstract. He will discuss the phylogenetic results from this paper. The second phase of the work involved dividing insects into taxonomic divisions, or subprojects, which include dragonflies, grasshoppers and their close relatives, mantids and roaches, true bugs and lice, bees, wasps and ants, beetles, lacewings and their close relatives, flies, caddisflies, and butterflies and moths. These subprojects include data from 1500 species, and 3500-4900 genes. He will discuss the progress on the subprojects.
“Because of the size of these data, we have modified protocols for virtually every step in the analytical pipeline, and these modifications will be discussed,” Kjer noted. “A large number of collaborative spin-off projects involving the development of new methods of analysis, and the molecular mechanisms of insect physiology. Finally, the entire project will be summarized in a book.”
Kjer, who joined UC Davis in July from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N. J., said that the research project reveals that insects originated some 450 million years ago, around the same time as the first plants and that together they shaped the Earth's earliest ecosystem. Insects, such as dragonflies and damselflies, inhabited the earth 150 million years before dinosaurs.
The 100-member research team from 10 countries also discovered that insects first took flight 400 million years ago and were flying 200 million years before any other animal did so.
Their work was featured in a cover story, Nov. 7, 2014, of Science. The team used DNA data from 1400 genes to map out evolutionary relationships among all insect orders, said Kjer, one of three directors of the project. "Using only 10 percent of the data we have in hand, this paper resolved many of the long-standing debates about insect phylogenetics," Kjer said in a Rutgers news release. “Phylogeny forms the foundation for telling us the who, what, when, and why of life. Many previously intractable questions are now resolved, while many of the ‘revolutions' brought about by previous analyses of smaller molecular datasets have contained errors that are now being corrected.”
"Insects did just about everything first," according to Kjer. "They were the first to form social societies, farm, and sing — just about anything you can imagine. Insects are the dominant players in almost all terrestrial ecosytems, and as such, they have a major impact on agriculture and human health.”
Background
Karl Kjer has loved insects since age 3 when he kept a “secret insect collection” in his family's garage in Whapeton, N.D.
But when it came time to choose a career, he narrowed his choices to three: entomologist, medical doctor or music teacher.
In college, Karl double-majored in biology and music, graduating magna cum laude, in 1982 from Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn. He taught music at a high school in Coon Rapids, Minn., for a year and then worked as a medical research lab technician in at the University of Iowa Hospital and Clinics, Iowa City, until 1986.
But entomology won. He entered graduate school to pursue his master's degree (1988) and doctorate (1992) in entomology from the University of Minnesota. After postdoctoral work on lizards at Brigham Young University in Utah, he joined the faculty of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J., where he served as a professor of ecology, evolution and natural resources and as a co-director of 1KITE. He also curated the Rutgers' insect collection.
Fast forward to 2015.
After an 18-year career at Rutgers, Kjer accepted the position of professor and Schlinger Chair of Systematic Entomology, in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at UC Davis.
Here, Kjer continues his teaching and research on phylogenetics and the integration of molecular biology and organismal biology. “I just love teaching and learning about insects,” he said. “I have been fascinated with them for as long as I can remember, and want to share this passion with our students at UC Davis. I believe that understanding evolution makes life richer.”
Kjer would also like to use his endowed chair position to talk about science in general, “Support for basic science is dropping,” he said. He is deeply concerned with recent trends in the public marginalization of science. “From conservatives and liberals alike, we are seeing misguided beliefs that ‘vaccines cause autism' or ‘climate change is a hoax' and many other catastrophic falsehoods perpetuated in the blogosphere. If you need heart surgery, consult a heart specialist…not a plumber.”
“If you are over 40,” Kjer said, “you can probably thank your continued existence to science. Science deniers threaten the health and well being of every living thing on the planet, today, and deep into the future.”
Kjer has served as the associate editor of Systematic Biology since 2001. A member of the Society of Systemic Biologists and the Molecular Biology and Evolution Society since 1994 and ESA in 1986, he was elected from 2008 to 2012 to the Systemic Biology Council.
Related Links:
LiveScience: Insect Family Tree Maps 400-Million Evolution
Alumni Spotlight: University of Minnesota
Evert Schlinger: 1928-2014
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you plant it, they will come—the pollinators as well as members of the UC Davis campus community.
As of Tuesday morning, Nov. 3, the large concrete planter at the main entrance to Briggs Hall is thriving with bee friendly plants, including ceanothus, rosemary, evergreen currant, salvias, seaside daisy, snowberry, gum plant, California buckwheat, California fuschia and California goldenrod.
“The Campus Grounds removed the existing plants to allow us to do this,” said Christine Casey, staff director of the department's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven on Bee Biology Road. Garden volunteers Sarah Dohle, Sky Johnson, Finnegan Pitchford, Betty Warne, Rick Williams, and Sharon Kirkpatrick comprised the team that completed the project.
Casey credited Skip Mezger, campus landscape architect, and Cary Avery, associate director, Campus Planning and Community Resources, for approvals and help with logistics. She and Ellen Zagory, director of horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum, collaborated on the plant selection.
The Arboretum also donated the California goldenrod, “Cascade Creek.” Other plants were purchased with Häagen-Dazs funds.
The plant list is online at http://hhbhgarden.ucdavis.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Briggs-Hall-Pollinator-Garden-plant-list-and-plan.pdf. The chart indicates the botanical name, common name, family name, sun/shade exposure, flowering period and flower color.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“I am interested in understanding and predicting how microbial communities influence interactions between plants and insects,” she said. “In the Vannette lab (in Briggs Hall), we use tools and concepts from microbial ecology, chemical ecology, and community ecology to better understand the ecology and evolution of interactions among plants, microbes and insects."
A native of Hudsonville, Mich., Vannette received her bachelor of science degree in biology with honors at Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Mich., and her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Michigan, in 2011. Her dissertation was entitled “Whose Phenotype Is It Anyway? The Complex Role of Species Interactions and Resource Availability in Determining the Expression of Plant Defense Phenotype and Community Consequences.”
In her PhD research, she examined how variation in nutrient availability and plant associations with mycorrhizal fungi belowground influenced defense chemistry in milkweed plants and the performance of a specialist herbivore (Danaus plexippus). She found that resource-based tradeoffs can in part explain plant allocation to antiherbivore defense and mycorrhizal fungi. This work also describes that plant genotypes vary in their investment in defense and associations with belowground fungi.
As a Stanford University postdoctoral fellow, funded by a life sciences research fellowship, Vannette examined the community ecology of plant-associated microorganisms. Using diverse systems, she studied the assembly of microbial communities, microbial response to anthropogenic changes like habitat fragmentation, and microbial effects on plant-pollinator interactions.
- Community ecology of plant-associated microbial communities. She explored what mechanisms shape the structure and function of microbial communities associated with plants, and how to assemble mechanisms to better understand functions, including the effects on insect herbivores and pollinators. She also researched how ants influence microbial community structure and nectar characteristics in coffee agroecosystems.
- Nectar ecology. Knowing that yeasts and bacteria are common inhabitants of flowers, and attain high densities in floral nectar, she researched how these microbes influence plants and pollinators, the mechanisms involved, and evolutionary ecology of these interactions. She also studied how nectar constituents influence pollinator foraging and health.
- Influence of anthropogenic changes on plant-microbe (insect) interactions. She researched how fragmentation affects fungal community composition in the rhizosphere of Meterosideros polymorpha, a species of flowering evergreen tree in the myrtle family. She also studied elevated carbon dioxide changes plant-microbe-insect interactions, and researched the effects of mycorrhizal fungi on plant defense and plant-herbivore interactions.
The National Wildlife Research Foundation featured Vannette's research on monarchs and milkweed in its March 11, 2013 piece on “Catering to Butterfly Royalty." The article, by author Doreen Cubie, focused on Vannette's research as a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Vannette and advisor Mark Hunter studied five common species of milkweeds, the host plant for monarchs. They found that climate change may disrupt the chemistry of milkweeds, and encouraged gardeners to help the monarchs by planting more of these critical host plants.
Vannette and Hunter grew the plants in open-air chambers, “exposing them to elevated amounts of carbon dioxide designed to mimic Earth's atmosphere in the future,” wrote Cubie. “Although most of the plants grew slightly larger, the composition of plant leaves changed dramatically. Most of the milkweed families decreased their production of toxins, some by as much as 50 percent. The extra carbon dioxide exposure toughened the leaves, a problem for the caterpillars.
Last March Vannette was an invited speaker on the ecology and evolution of the microbiome at the University of Michigan Early Career Scientists' symposium in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Among her recent publications:
- Co-author of “Plant-Derived Variation in the Composition of Aphid Honeydew and its Effects on Colonies of Aphid-Tending Ants,” published in November 2014 in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
- Lead author of “Genetic Variation in Plant Below-Ground Response to Elevated CO2 and Two Herbivore Species,” published in July 2014 in Plant Soil.
- Co-author of “Honey Bees Avoid Nectar Colonized by Three Bacterial Species, but not by a Yeast Species, Isolated from the Bee Gut,” published in a January 2014 edition of PLOS ONE.
- Lead author of “Historical Contingency in Species Interactions: Towards Niche-Based Predictions,” published November 2013 in Ecology Letters. (Recommended by the Faculty of 1000)