Doctoral candidate Mia Lippey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, an outstanding scholar and self-described "life-long lover of all things insect-related," is looking forward to delivering her exit seminar.
An entomologist and ecologist active in both the Entomological Society of America and the Ecological Society of America, Lippey focuses her research on using "big data" to understand how global change affects agricultural arthropod communities.
Lippey will present her exit seminar on "Winners and Losers of Agricultural Arthropods under Global Change (an Ecoinformatics Approach)” at 12:10 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 7 in 122 Briggs Hall. Her seminar also will be on Zoom. The link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
A 6th-year PhD candidate working with major professors Emily Meineke and Jay Rosenheim (UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus), Lippey holds a 4.0 grade point average. She received her bachelor's degree (with high honors) in entomology in 2019 from UC Davis, where she conducted undergraduate research in the Louie Yang and Phil Ward labs.
Managing agricultural productivity under global change requires understanding how arthropod communities respond to anthropogenic disturbance," Lippey says in her abstract. "Current adaptive interventions rely on three commonly-held agroecological predictions: (1) natural habitat enhances biological pest control while urbanization degrades it, (2) elevated temperatures consistently increase pest densities while disproportionately reducing natural enemies, and (3) laboratory-measured thermal performance traits predict field responses to temperature. However, these predictions rest largely on simplified ecological principles and controlled laboratory experiments that may not translate to complex agroecosystems."
"Using an ecoinformatics approach with over 141,000 observations across five major Mediterranean crops in California, the United States and Andalusia, Spain, we tested these predictions in the field," she said. "Our findings reveal remarkable heterogeneity in arthropod responses to both land use and temperature, with both winners and losers emerging among pest and natural enemy populations in response to both drivers of global change. We found partial support for the hypothesis that natural enemies are more vulnerable to elevated temperatures than pests. Laboratory-measured thermal performance traits and other life history characteristics failed to predict arthropod responses to temperature in the field. Together, these results suggest that effective agricultural climate adaptation strategies should prioritize site-specific, intensive monitoring over generalized landscape and trait-based predictions."
PBESA Student Leadership Award
Lippey received the 2025 Student Leadership Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA), which covers 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico, and U.S. territories. The award recognizes a Pacific Branch entomology student (undergraduate or graduate) "for outstanding leadership in his/her department, university, community, and professional societies, while still achieving academic excellence." Her nominators described her as a "leader extraordinaire and an awe-inspiring entomologist who not only excels in leadership, but in research, academics, public service, science communication, computer programming, and scientific illustrations." Some of her illustrations and photography appear on her page of the Rosenheim lab website.
Lippey is a past president (2023-24) of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA). Among her many honors:
- She received a 2024 USDA AFRI NIFA Predoctoral Fellowship of $120,000. (NIFA is the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and AFRI is the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.)
- At the 2024 ESA meeting in Phoenix, she won a President’s Prize for her outstanding research presentation on "A Big Data Approach to Characterizing Impacts of Climate Warming on Agricultural Arthropod Populations" in the Plant-Ecosystems, Biocontrol Category.
Led STEM Projects
Lippey's many activities include serving on the department's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee; leading an Ecological and Evolutionary Response to Rapid Environmental Changes Program; and co-leading a UC Davis STEM Squad outreach program for middle and high school students in the Yolo County area. She has led STEM projects, encouraging and guiding underrepresented students to seek careers in science, technology, engineering ;and mathematics; and assisting them with career explorations, job searches, networking, resumes and cover letters. She also created hands-on activities, focusing on entomological research through insect collection and curation.
In other leadership and mentoring activities, Lippey led a graduate student seminar on agricultural entomology and ecology, zeroing in on traditional ecological knowledge. She created a course syllabus and led weekly discussions.
Seminar coordinator Marshall McMunn, assistant professor, may be reached at msmcmunn@ucdavis.edu for any Zoom issues.
Cover image: Doctoral candidate Mia Lippey on a field trip.