- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), distinguished emeritus professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Leal, professor of biochemistry in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and former professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, said Thorp "epitomizes how emeriti contribute to UC Davis."
Thorp, a 30-year member of the entomology faculty, and a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, retired in 1994, but he continued working until several weeks before his death on June 7, 2019, at age 85. In 2014, he co-authored two books: Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday). He published more than 50 percent of his papers following his retirement."
“Robbin's scientific achievements during his retirement rival the typical career productivity of many other academic scientists,” said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, at the time of the legendary entomologist's death. “His contributions in support of understanding bee biodiversity and systematics are a true scientific legacy.”
The video tribute is online at
https://youtu.be/s6fxdg2XZPA?si=u0SG1UvUG34zQxmV.
It includes images and accomplishments of many of the emeriti, meant as a small representation of the achievements of all. (See news story)
In his message, Chancellor May told the new emeriti: "You played a central role in keeping UC Davis at the forefront of excellence. Your continued engagement through teaching, research, volunteering and philanthropy is vital to our continued growth and success. So I encourage you to stay engaged with campus. The UC Davis Emeriti Association is here with resources and support for this newest chapter of your career. Please take advantage of it. Thank you for our dedication to UC Davis and congratulations on reaching this milestone."
Among its many activities, UC Davis Emeriti Association (UCDEA) interviews and records emeriti who have made "significant contributions to the development of the university." (See Video Records Project.)
One of them is Robbin Thorp. (Watch the video here.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's a celebration of (1) the accomplishments of the faculty entering a new chapter in their lives (2) the extraordinary retirement years of the late Robbin Thorp of the Department of Entomology and Nematology; and a congratulatory message by Chancellor Gary May.
The video is online at
https://youtu.be/s6fxdg2XZPA?si=u0SG1UvUG34zQxmV.
"Summer is nearly over, and the fall quarter begins soon," said Leal, professor of biochemistry in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and former professor and chair of the Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). "Let's pause and express our gratitude to our colleagues who transitioned to emeriti status this summer."
"For decades, they strived to make UC Davis a better place, and many will remain engaged with research, teaching, and public service," he noted.
Leal said the late Distinguished Emeritus Professor Robbin Thorp (1933-2019) epitomizes how emeriti contribute to UC Davis. Thorp, a 30-year member of the entomology faculty, and a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, retired in 1994, but he continued working until several weeks before his death on June 7, 2019, at age 85. In 2014, he co-authored two books: Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday). He published more than 50 percent of his papers following his retirement.
- UC Davis offered COVID tests within three weeks of our nation's first known patient with community-acquired COVID-19.
- Their research led to the development of better ceramic and glass materials;
- They helped improve military retention;
- They developed innovative techniques for shoulder and wrist reconstruction;
- They generated one of the world's largest and longest-running systems for monitoring butterfly faunas;
- They led plans for the UC Davis National Cancer Institute to be designated a Comprehensive Cancer Center;
- They are film historians who authored books such as Paris in the Dark: Going to the Movies in the City of Light, 1930-1950;
- They helped create the world's first total-body PET scanner;
- They brought a global perspective to the table to create innovative and pragmatic approaches to sustainability;
- Their research showed how music and dance articulate ethnic, gender, regional, and national identities;
- They helped us, and more importantly, lawmakers, understand how the toxic action of pesticides may affect aquatic systems and organisms;
- Their research shed light on the psychological development of young children;
- They unraveled molecular processes leading to arthritis;
- They showed how management controls facilitate strategic alliances and supply chain partnerships;
- They integrated methods from traditional engineering, operation research, and economics to solve water and environmental management problems;
- They provided comprehensive psychiatric services to ethnic and sexual minorities, including refugees and immigrants;
- They colleagues created new approaches for using plants for the production of recombinant proteins with various applications, including medicine;
- They elucidated how natural products influence the function of ion channels in the nervous system;
- They provided emergency medical care and taught nursing, air medical, EMS, and disaster medicine courses;
- They designed programs for teachers to investigate their teaching skills and students' learning;
- They investigated how plants edit and repair DNA;
- They advanced our understanding of infectious diseases and aging in nonhuman primates; and
- Their research led to improvements in bean cultivars in California, the United States, Latin America and Africa;
The video tribute includes images of many of the emeriti, meant as a small representation of the achievements of all.
In his message, Chancellor May told the new emeriti: "You played a central role in keeping UC Davis at the forefront of excellence. Your continued engagement through teaching, research, volunteering and philanthropy is vital to our continued growth and success. So I encourage you to stay engaged with campus. The UC Davis Emeriti Association is here with resources and support for this newest chapter of your career. Please take advantage of it. Thank you for our dedication to UC Davis and congratulations on reaching this milestone."
Among its many activities, UC Davis Emeriti Association (UCDEA) interviews and records emeriti who have made "significant contributions to the development of the university." See Video Records Project.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Get off my turf!
The native bees known as Melissodes, the longhorned bees, start stirring in the early morning. First, they settle on a leaf or flower to warm up their flight muscles. Once ready to fly, they don't let up until late afternoon.
We look forward to seeing them forage and battle one another in our Mexican sunflower (Tithonia rotundifola) patch, a key part of our Vacaville pollinator garden.
The males are extremely territorial and try to bop other insects off "their" flowers. That includes bumble bees, butterflies and males of their species. Sometimes they aim for a spider or praying mantis on their real estate. Sometimes they lose. Why are the males such bee boppers? To protect their turf, according to the lateRobbinThorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor. They are trying to save the resources for the females per chance to mate with them.
If you have a camera that will allow you to set a fast shutter speed, such as 1/8000 of a second, sometimes you can freeze the action. Otherwise, they are an elongated blur as they whiz by, seemingly faster than the proverbial "speeding bullet."
The book, California Bees and Blooms, a Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heydey 2014), co-authored by University of California scientists, offers a closer look at Melissodes.
California is home to more than "1600 hundred species of undomesticated bees—most of them native—that populate and pollinate our gardens, fields, and urban green spaces," according to the authors (Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter.) They explored 22 most common genera (and six species of cuckoo bees), describing each one's distinctive behaviors, social structures, flight season, preferred flowers, and enemies.
One of them is the Melissodes agilis that we find in our garden.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The English lavender drew her in.
And there she was, a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging in our family's pollinator garden in Vacaville.
She buzzed from blossom to blossom, ignoring the honey bees, syrphid flies and...the photographer.
Ms. Bumble Bee was on a morning mission--to gather as much nectar as quickly as possible and return to her colony.
Sadly, this year bumble bees in our pollinator garden seem to be as "scarce as hen's teeth." (Since hens have no teeth, hens' teeth are so scarce as to be non-existent!)
This Bombus arrived June 4 and we haven't seen any since.
“Bumble bees provide an important ecological service--pollination," native bee expert Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology, told us. "This service is critical to reproduction of a huge diversity of plants that in turn provide shelter, food (seeds, fruits) to diverse wildlife. The potential cascade of effects from the removal of even one localized pollinator may affect us directly and indirectly.”
In his retirement, Professor Thorp co-authored Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The contest, sponsored by the Bohart Museum of Entomology memorializes Thorp (1933-2019), a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor and global expert on bumble bees who always looked forward to seeing the first bumble bee of the year.
De Grassi captured a video of a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, foraging on a prized ceanothus plant on Sunday afternoon, Jan. 8 in her backyard in Davis.
She recorded the video on her cell phone at 12:32 p.m. to win the contest, sponsored by the Bohart Museum of Entomology and memorializing global bee expert Robbin Thorp (1933-2019), a distinguished emeritus professor of entomology. (See her YouTube video)
De Grassi, a former director of federal policy, livestock, animal health and welfare for the California Farm Bureau Federation, credits the storm, the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, and her working relationships with bee scientists, including Thorp, as having a hand in either her find and/or her interest in plants and pollinators.
The three previous winners (2022 was a tie) each photographed a bumble bee in the 100-acre UC Davis Arboretum. Ironically, de Grassi bought her prized ceanothus at an Arboretum plant sale.
“I was doing clean-up in my backyard after Saturday night's rain and a 50-plus mile-per-hour windstorm,” said de Grassi, now an agricultural policy consultant. “The wind had subsided to a breeze by then. As I walked past my Ray Hartman ceanothus—which I purchased from a UC Davis Arboretum plant sale years ago when I did a garden makeover to be pollinator-friendly—I noticed some extra-long ceanothus branches that needed to be pruned, including some with super-early blooming flowers.”
De Grassi returned with her pole trimmer and started cutting. It was then she noticed a bumble bee foraging on her ceanothus--and when she remembered the “friendly Bohart Museum contest” inviting folks to find and photograph the first bumble bee in the two-county area of Solano and Yolo.
“I fumbled to retrieve my cell phone from my pocket to record, just to get in on the fun,” said de Grassi. “These bumbles dart around a lot, they don't stay put for photo ops.”
De Grassi knew Thorp from her professional work with the California Farm Bureau Federation and from her friendship with bee scientists Timothy Lawrence and Susan Cobey, formerly of UC Davis. “Tim and Sue were active in the California Farm Bureau's statewide Bee Advisory Committee that I managed,” she said. Lawrence is now a Washington State University Extension county director (Island County) and Cobey, a WSU bee breeder geneticist.
“I love documenting nature's cool stuff and especially the surprises we uncover when we pause long enough to notice,” de Grassi commented. The caterpillars she discovered eating her coral fountain (aka “firecracker plant,” Russelia equisetiiformis) led to UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro documenting it as a butterfly larval host.
“Gardening for pollinators has become my passion pastime. I like to give native and managed bees pesticide-free forage.”
As her prizes, de Grassi received a Franklin's bumble bee coffee cup from the Bohart Museum and handmade bee gifts (including a zippered bee-motif bag and bee-motif soaps) from Teresa Hickman of Vacaville, owner of "Handmade by Teresa."
De Grassi holds two degrees from UC Davis: a bachelor's degree in agricultural science and management and a master's degree in animal science. She is a former chair of the UC Davis Department of Animal Science Development Board, and a former member of the Cal Aggie Alumni Association Board and the UC Davis Foundation Board of Trustees.
The Davis resident is no stranger to the UC Davis Arboretum (site of the previous winners). “I've walked the Arboretum since the time I was an undergrad here. It's my favorite place on campus and was absolutely my inspiration for plant choices in my urban garden makeover.”
Postdoctoral researcher Charlie Casey Nicholson of the Neal Williams lab and the Elina Lastro Niño lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the 2021 contest by photographing a B. melanopygus at 3:10 p.m., Jan. 14 in a manzanita patch in the Arboretum.
UC Davis doctoral candidate Maureen Page of the Neal Williams lab and horticulturist Ellen Zagory, retired director of public horticulture for the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden, tied for first in the 2022 contest by each photographing a bumble bee foraging on manzanita (Arctostaphylos) in the Arboretum at 2:30 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 1.
Page, who now holds a doctorate in entomology, photographed a B. melanopygus, while Zagory captured an image of the yellow-faced bumble bee, B. vosnesenskii.
Thorp, a 30-year member of the UC Davis faculty, and a tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, retired in 1994, but he continued working until several weeks before his death on June 7, 2019 at age 85. In 2014, he co-authored two books: Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University,) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday).