UC Davis doctoral student Erin Taylor Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo lab won the Student Leadership Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America.

The award-winning trio: 

• Medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo received the Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Award. (See news story)
• Doctoral student Erin Taylor Kelly of the Attardo lab won the Student Leadership Award (See news story)
• Undergraduate entomology student Gwen Erdosh of the Louie Yang lab and a member of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, won the inaugural Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship (See news story)

Eric Wilson Rankin of UC Riverside, who won the PBESA distinguished teaching award, was a postdoctoral researcher in the Louie Yang lab, UC Davis, in 2010.

Rankin says her research "focuses on investigating species interactions and their effects on trophic dynamics and ecosystem services within the contexts of invasion biology, community ecology and evolutionary ecology." She received her bachelor's degree in biology in 2002 from Georgetown University, Washington, DC, and obtained her doctorate in biological sciences from UC San Diego in 2009. Then it was off to UC Davis for a year in the Yang lab before accepting a position as postdoctoral researcher with the University of Maryland's Department of Entomology.  Rankin joined the UC Riverside faculty in 2013 as an assistant professor and advanced to associate professor in 2019.

In 2021 Rankin was named the recipient of two major awards: the Outstanding Faculty Mentor and the Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award. See her research and publications on her website.

Rankin's award was one of five awarded to UC Riverside entomologists: 

• Mark Hoddle won the C. W. Woodworth Award
• Jessica Purcell, Distinction in Student Mentoring Award
• Dong-Hwan Choe, Distinguished Achievement in Extension Award
• Kerry Mauck, Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award

Results showed UC entomologists (from the two campuses) winning a total of eight awards, and USDA, four. (See the chart below) Congratulations, all!

Pacific Branch. The Pacific branch encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.

In the United States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

U.S. Territories: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island

In Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Yukon

In Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora

ESA, founded in 1889, is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and individuals in related disciplines. Its 7,000 members are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. They are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.  

Erin Taylor Kelly, PBESA Student Leadership Award

UC Davis received three awards:

• Medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo received the Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Award. (See news story)
• Doctoral student Erin Taylor Kelly of the Attardo lab won the Student Leadership Award (See news story)
• Undergraduate entomology student Gwen Erdosh of the Louie Yang lab and a member of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, won the inaugural Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship (See news story)

The branch encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.

In the United States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

U.S. Territories: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island

In Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Yukon

In Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora

Congratulations to all the winners!

Erin Taylor Kelly, recipient of 2022 PBESA Student Leadership Award

Kelly will be honored at an awards luncheon during the annual PBESA meeting, set April 10-13 in Santa Rosa. The branch encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.

Kelly, who joined the Attardo lab in 2018, is the two-term president of the UC Davis Equity in STEM and Entrepreneurship (ESTEME) and serves as the vice president of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA). 

"She excels in leadership, as well as in research, academics and public service," wrote Steve Nadler, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, in his letter of nomination.  Known as Taylor, she "is an important role model, sharing her enthusiasm for entomology and other sciences with the public, and eagerly supporting undergraduate students and others on their paths to scientific careers."

Taylor drew strong support from doctoral candidate Jill Oberski, president of EGSA and an active member of ESTEME;  ESTEME past president Alexus Roberts, and ESTEME colleague Sophie Zhu.  The organization supports greater equity and inclusion in science, helping help low-income, underrepresented, non-traditional students face and overcome the overwhelming barriers in reaching their goals. They also organize and coordinate activities for K-12 students and undergraduates, while also providing professional development events for fellow members.

Helping Fellow Graduate Students. Taylor's leadership activities in EGSA include collaborating with her peers to provide resources to support incoming students. Each year she collects information about awards they can apply for, and the courses that need teaching assistants. "She surveys students on their cost-of-living needs, and works with our administration to secure the assistance they need," wrote Nadler. "She continually shares information related to living in Davis and thriving in graduate school." Since 2019, Kelly has helped the EGSA coordinate the department's UC Davis Picnic Day activities, leading the EGSA committee in 2020-21. She also serves on the UC Davis Graduate Admissions Committee.

Taylor's leadership activities in EGSA include collaborating with her EGSA peers to provide resources to support incoming students. Each year she collects information about awards they can apply for, and the courses that need teaching assistants. "She surveys students on their cost-of-living needs, and works with our administration to secure the assistance they need," wrote Nadler. "She continually shares information related to living in Davis and thriving in graduate school." In addition, she is the EGSA coordinator of the department's UC Davis Picnic Day activities and serves  on the UC Davis Graduate Admissions Committee.

Kelly won a coveted first-place award at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting last November with her poster, “Metabolic Snapshot: Using Metabolomics to Compare Near-Wild and Colonized Aedes aegypti.”  She has been instrumental in teaching the graduate student offering of ENT 010 (Natural History of Insects).  

Her major professor, medical entomologist and geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, praises her strong leadership, her excellence as a doctoral student and her strong leadership role in his lab. "She is dedicated, self-motivated, compassionate, enthusiastic, confident, and demonstrates deep-rooted integrity in how she goes about her work and her interactions with colleagues and students," Attardo wrote in his letter of recommendation. "Within the lab, Taylor plays a strong leadership role, critical to the mentorship of undergraduate researchers who join the lab. Taylor greatly helps assist students with training in experimental design and execution; reading and interpretation of the scientific literature; training in data analysis; and scientific writing. Her mentorship manifested in the publication of a first- author manuscript (van Schoor et al.) by a talented undergraduate researcher in my group. The work explores the relationship between larval dietary composition and adult outcomes in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes. Taylor is always willing to help lab members with their projects and plays a key role in maintaining the lab's welcoming atmosphere and research successes."

People-Motivated. Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey, the faculty chair of the department's Picnic Day activities, says that  "Taylor ranks among the most people-motivated graduate students I have had the pleasure to work with.”

“Setting aside for the moment Taylor's top flight academic background and qualifications, I have found her to be the ideal collaborator, very cooperative, consistently cheerful, perfectly dependable, and delightful to work with,” Kimsey related. “Competition may or may not select for exceptional researchers, but often selects for difficult characters. Taylor almost uniquely combines high productivity and intense curiosity with a delightful personality, an ideal combination to have in a program in which people must survive with each other. She has been an excellent graduate student, very gregarious, conscientious, with an exceptional ability to work with persons of any sort. She ranks among the most people-motivated graduate students I have had the pleasure to work with.”

UC Davis medical entomologist Anthony Cornel, who leads the Mosquito Control Research Laboratory in Parlier, works with Taylor on insecticide resistance in mosquitoes. “Taylor's PhD project is challenging as she endeavors to tease apart the biochemical and genetic factors that cause resistance to some commonly used insecticides to control Aedes aegypti," Cornel wrote.  "Ae. aegypti is considered the second most dangerous insect worldwide because of its role in transmission of dengue, yellow fever, Zika and Chikungunya viruses which cause considerable morbidity and mortality. Hence, it is an important organism to study especially to eventually improve measures to control this mosquito."

Critical Thinker. "Taylor has done very well as a PhD student, so far, having 4 publications related to Ae. aegypti, 3 publications on webspinners (Embioptera) and 2 publications related to astrobiology," Cornel related.  “My interactions with her convince me that she is a critical thinker and questions everything before undertaking tasks and experiments. These are attributes of a young scientist that will stand her in good stead to become excellent in academia. Almost all successful academics think out of the box and can work independently and collegially. She works with several other graduate and research assistants, and everyone likes her kindness, honesty, and helpfulness. Taylor's interests so far have mostly related to entomology systematics, genetics, and metabolomics. She has expressed her desire to remain as an entomologist beyond her graduate studies. She will always be a wonderful ambassador for entomology and her diverse knowledge of disciplines from systematics to behavior to protein and DNA studies makes her an excellent entomologist indeed.”

Taylor holds a bachelor of science degree in biology, with a minor in chemistry, from Santa Clara University, where she served as president of the campuswide Biology Club and led STEM projects, encouraging and guiding underrepresented students to seek careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

Erin Taylor Kelly's research poster on the mosquito, Aedes aegypti, won first place in an Entomological Society of America graduate student competition. (CDC Photo)

The UC Davis winners, all doctoral students, are Erin Taylor Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo lab, Hyoseok Lee of the Christian Nansen lab, Jill Oberski of the Phil Ward lab, Lacie Newton of the Jason Bond lab, and Clara Stuligross of the Neal Williams lab. 

• Kelly won first place for her poster, “Metabolic Snapshot: Using Metabolomics to Compare Near-Wild and Colonized Aedes aegypti,” in the Physiology, Biochemistry and Ecology Section.
• Lee won first place for his entry,  “Predicting Spring Migration of Beet Leafhoppers, Circulifer tenellus (Hemiptera: Cicadellidae) from Natural Overwintering Sites into Tomato fields in California" in the Graduate 10-Minute Papers category of the Plant-Insect Ecosystems, Behavioral Ecology Section
• Oberski won first place for her entry, “Why Do Museum Collections Matter?” in the Graduate Infographics category, Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity Section.
• Newton won second place for her entry, “Integrative Species Delimitation Reveals Cryptic Diversity in the Southern Appalachian Antrodiaetus unicolor (Araneae: Antrodiaetidae) Species Complex,” in the Graduate 10-Minute Papers category in the Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity Section, Genomics.
• Stuligross won second place for her entry, "Larval Pesticide Exposure Reduces Adult Wild Bee Reproduction,” in the Graduate 10-Minute Papers category in the Plant-Insect Ecosystems, Pollinators 2 Section. 

The first-place winners received a $75 cash prize, a one-year membership in ESA and a certificate, while the second-place winners won a year's membership and a certificate.  

Erin Taylor Kelly

Erin Taylor Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo lab expects to receive her doctorate in June 2023. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biology (2016) from Santa Clara University, where she minored in chemistry, with an emphasis in molecular an cell biology.

On her Aedes aegypti poster:

Research in our lab has identified significant variability in the resistance phenotype of mosquitoes with target-site mutations, prompting us to wonder about the metabolic mechanisms involved in resistance in California populations of Aedes aegypti. The resistance phenotype is thought to have multiple fitness costs, including reduced fecundity, adult body size and longevity (6–9). We hypothesize that looking at the insect's metabolome may allow us to better understand the physiology behind these potential fitness costs by providing a snap shot of the insect's metabolite composition and insight into pathway demands and energetic deficiencies. Metabolomics has the benefit of providing insight into mosquito biology at the level of phenotype.

Hyoseok Lee

Hyoseok Lee, who joined the Christian Nansen lab in 2017, holds a master's degree in entomology (2014) from Seoul National University.

The abstract:
Most of tomato production in California occurs in the Central Valley, which has “the foothills” as its western boundary. Beet leafhoppers overwinter in green natural vegetation in the foothills and migrate into crop fields, including tomato, during spring as natural vegetation dries out and green crop vegetation becomes available. In this study, we built a simulation model predicting spring migration of beet leafhoppers based on vegetation greenness in the foothills. Vegetation greenness (EVI, Enhanced vegetation index) in the foothills was calculated based on analyses of satellite imagery. Spring migration of s was monitored at three different locations in the foothills for two years using yellow sticky cards. Spring migration of beet leafhoppers was well described by the Weibull function. At all monitoring locations, the spring migration was started when the EVI values dropped to 0.2, and the proportion of migrating beet leafhoppers rapidly increased as the EVI values decreased. Our study indicates that the decrease in vegetation greenness triggers spring migration of beet leafhoppers and shows great potential for developing an early warning system.

Jill Oberski

Why Do Museum Collections Matter?
"Cabinets of curiosity” and natural history museums are the original basis of our knowledge of global biodiversity. Such collections, however, are more than just well-organized dead organisms. Museums are enormous libraries of identified species, localities, and dates, constantly updated and reorganized based on the best new information. These data inform countless fields of research, and can even answer future questions no one has yet thought to ask. Most importantly, they preserve irreplaceable type specimens, which are a crucial part of species description. Now that many of these insect collections are being digitized and accessed from around the globe, why is it necessary to maintain them as physical materials? While many datasets do lend themselves well to digitization, insect specimens experience significant data loss. Most commonly, photographs are taken of the specimens, but photos are usually inadequate for discerning taxonomic features. Even high-resolution 3D scans are no substitute for direct observations. Finally, museums are centers of education and public outreach. Through collections, biology students and communities can physically experience global insect biodiversity they might not otherwise see, regardless of location or mobility. The “wow” factor of magnificent specimens is most powerful in person. As our lives become increasingly computer-oriented, we must recognize that to enjoy and study nature, no digital replacement will suffice. 

Lacie Newton

Lacie Newton of the Jason Bond lab, expects to obtain her doctorate in entomology in June 2022. She holds a bachelor of science degree in biological sciences (2016) from Millsaps College, Jackson, Miss.

The Abstract:

Although species delimitation can be highly contentious, the development of reliable methods to accurately ascertain species boundaries is an imperative step in cataloguing and describing Earth's quickly disappearing biodiversity. Spider species delimitation remains largely based on morphological characters; however, many mygalomorph spider populations are morphologically indistinguishable from each other yet have considerable molecular divergence. The focus of our study, the Antrodiaetus unicolor species complex containing two sympatric species, exhibits this pattern of relative morphological stasis with considerable genetic divergence across its distribution. A past study using two molecular markers, COI and 28S, revealed that A. unicolor is paraphyletic with respect to A. microunicolor. To better investigate species boundaries in the complex, we implement the cohesion species concept and use multiple lines of evidence for testing genetic exchangeability and ecological interchangeability. Our integrative approach includes extensively sampling homologous loci across the genome using a RADseq approach (3RAD), assessing population structure across their geographic range using multiple genetic clustering analyses that include structure, principal components analysis and a recently developed unsupervised machine learning approach (Variational Autoencoder). We evaluate ecological similarity by using large‐scale ecological data for niche‐based distribution modelling. Based on our analyses, we conclude that this complex has at least one additional species as well as confirm species delimitations based on previous less comprehensive approaches. Our study demonstrates the efficacy of genomic‐scale data for recognizing cryptic species, suggesting that species delimitation with one data type may underestimate true species diversity in morphologically homogenous taxa with low vagility.

Clara Stuligross

Clara Stuligross, who joined the Neal Williams lab in 2016, received her bachelor of science degree in environmental studies, with minors in biology and outdoor education, in 2014 from Earlham College, Richmond, Ind.

The Abstract:

Bees encounter pesticides across landscapes as they forage for pollen and nectar. Exposure to pesticides has negative effects on wild bees, but little is known about the effects of chronic larval exposure on adult performance. We investigated the effects of larval and adult pesticide exposure on the foraging and reproduction of the solitary bee, Osmia lignaria. We established nesting O. lignaria females in 16 field cages containing wildflowers treated with or without imidacloprid, the most widely used neonicotinoid insecticide. As larvae, these parent bees were reared on provisions containing imidacloprid or controls. Larval and adult pesticide exposure directly affected bee nesting activity. Bees exposed to pesticides as adults were less likely to start nesting and produced fewer offspring. Additionally, bees exposed to pesticides as larvae provisioned fewer offspring than unexposed controls. Our research provides experimental evidence of the effects of pesticide exposure on solitary bees across multiple life stages, a critical step in understanding mechanisms underlying pollinator health.

 The Entomological Society of America, headquartered in Annapolis, Md., and founded in 1889, is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. They include educators, extension personnel, consultants, students, researchers, and scientists from agricultural departments, health agencies, private industries, colleges and universities, and state and federal governments. It is a scientific and educational resource for all insect-related topics. For more information, visit www.entsoc.org.