October 5, 2011

DAVIS — Integrated pest management (IPM) specialist Frank Zalom, professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and soon-to-be president of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America, is one of three Americans invited to speak at an international IPM workshop, Oct. 16-19, in Berlin, Germany.

Zalom, invited by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany, will speak on “Stimulating Use of Professional IPM Consultants in Agriculture, Benefits for Farmers and Society,” on Monday, Oct. 17.

The event is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which helps governments of the developed countries tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy. The OECD is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.

At the OECD workshop, to be held in the Julius Kuhn Institute, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, invitees will develop recommendations related to the workshop themes,  adoption and implementation of IPM in agriculture, contributing to the sustainable use of pesticides and to pesticide-risk reduction.

Wolfgang Zornback, chair of the OECD Working Group on Pesticides, German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, will welcome the group.

The speakers will include noted IPM specialists from Australia, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, The Netherlands and the UK. About 100 participants were either nominated by their governments or invited by the OECD. Half of the participants will include government representatives working on pesticide regulation, and half of the participants will include representatives from international/regional organizations: European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC), bio-pesticide industries, environmental and consumer organizations and academia.

Americans joining Zalom in Berlin will be Tom Green of the US/IPM Institute of North America in Madison, Wis., who will discuss  “IPM in U.S. Schools: Challenges, Opportunities and Implications for  IPM in Agriculture” and James VanKirk of the Southern Region IPM Center, North Carolina State University, who will address  “IPM Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education.”

The OECD workshop will conclude with a visit to the German chancellery.

Zalom will begin a four-year commitment to the Entomological Society of America (ESA) this fall when he will be inducted as vice president-elect at the organization’s 59th annual meeting set Nov. 13-16 in Reno. He will subsequently move up to vice president and president and then serve a year fulfilling the duties of past president. The UC Davis entomologist will become president at the end of the 2013 annual meeting and then will serve as president at the 2014 meeting in Portland, Ore.

Zalom has been heavily involved in research and leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) activities at the state, national and international levels. He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1986 -2001) and is currently experiment station co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) National IPM Committee.

Zalom focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.

The IPM strategies and tactics Zalom has developed include monitoring procedures, thresholds, pest development and population models, biological controls and use of less toxic pesticides, which have become standard in practice and part of the UC IPM Guidelines for these crops.

In his three decades with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, Zalom has published almost 300 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and 340 technical and extension articles. The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including  invasive species management, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, impacts and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods,  and determination of insect host feeding and oviposition preferences.

The Zalom lab has responded to six important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila.

Zalom is a fellow of ESA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences.

Highly honored for his work,  Zalom received the Entomological Foundation’s 2010 “Award for Excellence in IPM,” an award sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and given for “the most outstanding contributions to IPM.” In 2008 he was part of a team receiving an International IPM “Excellence Award” at the sixth International IPM Symposium. Also in 2008, Zalom was part of the seven-member UC Almond Pest Management Alliance IPM Team that received the Entomological Foundation’s "Award for Excellence in IPM.” The Pacific Branch of the ESA awarded Zalom its greatest honor, the C. W. Woodworth Award, in 2011.

October 4, 2011

The University of California is hosting a two-part workshop series, “Ties to the Land,” to help forest landowners pass their land and its legacy on to the next generation.

The first workshop is being offered at 11 locations throughout California. All workshops will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

“Family forests create many benefits through their stewardship actions, but the legacy can fall prey to the confusing details of land titles, permits, and inheritance if families have not crafted a succession plan,” said Bill Stewart, UC Cooperative Extension forestry specialist and organizer of the series. “This is especially true for owners who do not live in the county where their forest is. Their heirs have probably spent little time on the land and the lack of shared goals can become a problem.”

During the first workshop, participants will learn the steps needed to plan for passing land along to their heirs. An important first step in this process is clarifying the current owners’ goals and values for their family forest or ranch. This allows landowners to start the discussion with heirs about their long-term vision for the property. Participants will also learn about the financial impacts of ownership transfers across generations.

This first round of identical workshops is being held before the holidays, to allow time for families to get together during the winter holidays and discuss their goals. Locations and dates for the first workshop are as follows:

• Nevada City, Tuesday, October 11
• Placerville, Monday, October 17
• Sonora, Wednesday, October 19
• Redding, Tuesday, October 25
• Yreka, Wednesday, October 26
• Quincy, Thursday, October 27
• Ukiah, Tuesday, November 8
• Garberville, Wednesday, November 9
• Eureka, Thursday, November 10
• Berkeley, Tuesday, November 15
• Rohnert Park, Wednesday, November 16

The second workshop will be held after the holidays and will cover the financial and legal approaches and tools such as trusts, limited liability companies, and easements used in succession planning as well as specific planning approaches used to manage land and resources. Dates and times of the second workshop will be announced later.

Registration for the workshop is $25 per family to cover costs of the family workbook and DVD. Multiple members of each family are encouraged to attend both workshops and can attend the workshop location nearest to them as the curriculum will be the same.

To register for the workshop or for more information on locations or the workshop series, please see the University of California Forest Research and Outreach website http://ucanr.org/tiestotheland.

Robbin Thorp

A petition spearheaded by Thorp and the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation to list Franklin’s bumble bee under the National Endangered Species Act has moved to the next step in the process, the 12-month review period. This may lead to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) listing it as “endangered” and providing protective status.

The bad news: Thorp hasn’t seen Franklin’s bumble bee since 2006.

“I am still hopeful that Franklin’s bumble bee is still out there somewhere,” said Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology.  “Over the last 13 years I have watched the populations of this bumble bee decline precipitously. My hope is this species can recover before it is too late."

Thorp researches the declining population of Franklin’s bumble bee, Bombus franklini (Frison), found only in a narrow range of southern Oregon and northern California. Its range, a 13,300-square-mile area confined to Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California; and Jackson, Douglas and Josephine counties in Oregon, is thought to be the smallest of any other bumble bee in North America and the world.

Thorp’s surveys, conducted since 1998 clearly show the declining population. Sightings decreased from 94 in 1998 to 20 in 1999 to 9 in 2000 to one in 2001. Sightings increased slightly to 20 in 2002, but dropped to three in 2003. Thorp saw none in 2004 and 2005; one  in 2006; and none since.

“My experience with the Western bumble bee (B. occidentalis) indicates that populations can remain ‘under the radar’ for long periods of time when their numbers are low,” he said. Thorp did not see the Western bumble bee between 2002-2008, but now, although sightings are rare, they are “consistently encountered.”

This year Thorp surveyed the bumble bee's historic sites in southern Oregon and northern California on five separate trips of several days each: two in June and one each in July, August and September. "Flowering and bumble bee phenology were pushed back about a month this year due to our cold wet spring," he said. " I managed to see and photograph workers of B. occidentalis at two sites on my August trip. I had hoped to see males and even a Franklin’s on my last visit in September, but alas no luck."

"However, flowering was more like mid-August and lots of other species of worker bumble bees were still foraging," he noted. "Males and new queens were also on the wing.  The new queens will mate and hibernate to emerge and produce new colonies next year.  The old queens and the rest of this year's colony members will die out soon, as this season winds to a close."

Thorp and the Xerces Society petitioned USFWS on June 23, 2010 for endangered status for the bumble bee. Today (Sept. 13) USFWS announced “Based on our review, we find that the petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that listing this species may be warranted. Therefore, with publication of this notice we are initiating a review of the status of the species to determine if listing the Franklin’s bumble bee is warranted that Franklin's bumble bee may warrant protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act.”

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the world’s oldest and largest global environmental network,  named Franklin’s bumble bee “Species of the Day” on Oct. 21, 2010.  IUCN placed it on the “Red List of Threatened Species” and classified it as “critically endangered” and in “imminent danger of extinction.”

Franklin's bumble bee, mostly black, has distinctive yellow markings on the front of its thorax and top of its head, Thorp said. It has a solid black abdomen with just a touch of white at the tip, and an inverted U-shaped design between its wing bases.

“This bumble bee is partly at risk because of its very small range of distribution,” he said. “Adverse effects within this narrow range can have a much greater effect on it than on more widespread bumble bees.”

If it’s given protective status, this could “stimulate research into the probable causes of its decline,” said Thorp, an active member of The Xerces Society. “This may not only lead to its recovery, but also help us better understand environmental threats to pollinators and how to prevent them in future.  This petition also serves as a wake-up call to the importance of pollinators and the need to provide protections from the various threats to the health of their populations.”

Thorp hypothesizes that the decline of the subgenus Bombus (including B. franklini and its closely related B. occidentalis, and two eastern species B. affinis and B. terricola) is linked to an exotic disease (or diseases) associated with the trafficking of commercially produced bumble bees for pollination of greenhouse tomatoes.

Other threats may include pesticides, climate change and competition with nonnative bees, according to the Xerces Society executive director Scott Hoffman Black. Said Sarina Jepson,  endangered species program director at the Xerces Society: "Bumble bees play a critical role in ecosystems as pollinators of wildflowers, as well as many crops. We hope that the service will ultimately provide Endangered Species Act protection to this important pollinator."

Named in 1921 for Henry J. Franklin, who monographed the bumble bees of North and South America in 1912-13, Franklin’s bumble bee frequents California poppies, lupines, vetch, wild roses, blackberries, clover, sweet peas, horsemint and mountain penny royal during its flight season, from mid-May through September. It collects pollen primarily from lupines and poppies and gathers nectar mainly from mints.

According to a Xerces Society press release, bumble bees are declining throughout the world.

Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have “noticed a decline in the abundance of certain plants where multiple bee species have also declined. For many crops, such as greenhouse tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries, bumble bees are better pollinators than honey bees, and some species are produced commercially for their use in pollination. ”

Last October  Thorp received a  2010-11 Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship Award, from UC Davis to support his research on the critically imperiled bumble bee. The objectives of Thorp’s research funded by the Dickson grant are to:

1. Collect bumble bees for disease studies at the University of Illinois with emphasis on B. franklini (where and when appropriate so as not to hinder population recovery) and B. occidentalis and potential reservoir species known to co-occur with them, all within the historic range of B. franklini.
2. Survey for B. franklini and B. occidentalis with emphasis on B. franklini historical sites.
3. Include observations on population abundance of other species of bumble bees at monitoring sites for comparison with the two target species.
4. Monitor floral visitation and track any individuals of B. franklini and/or B. occidentalis to determine their  foraging behavior, subset of overall habitat used,  nest site locations, and acceptance of trap-nest boxes.

Thorp, a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, teaches “The Bee Course”  every summer for the American Museum of Natural History of New York at its field station in Arizona.

(Editor's Note: The Xerces Society contributed to this news release. See UC Davis Department of Entomology website at http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/news/franklinbumblebee.html for larger version of Franklin's bumble bee)