March 19, 2013
Her work is titled "Experimental and Natural Vertical Transmission of West Nile Virus by California Culex (Diptera: Culicidae) Mosquitoes.”
Nelms, who studied with major professor William Reisen, is now an entomologist with the Lake County Mosquito and Vector Control District.
Co-authors of the paper include Reisen; Ethan Fechter-Leggett; Brian Carroll; Paula Macedo; and Susanne Kluh.
In the abstract, Nelms says that the Culex mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile, are the primary summer vectors of the virus but they also may serve as overwintering reservoir hosts.
The Entomological Society of America wrote in a press release: “In California, Culex mosquitoes are considered to be the principal vectors of West Nile virus (WNV), which infects birds, humans, and other mammals during the summer. In addition, these mosquitoes may also serve as overwintering reservoir hosts as the virus is passed 'vertically' from female mosquito to egg, then larva, and then adult."
“To find out how often this happens, California researchers monitored WNV in mosquitoes in the field and in the lab, and observed how the virus is transmitted between generations and between insect stages.”
Nelms, a 2011 recipient of the William Hazeltine Memorial Research Fellowship Awards, will be back at UC Davis on May 8 to give her exit seminar, "Overwintering Biology of Culex Mosquitoes in California and Their Potential Role as Overwintering Reservoirs of West Nile Virus." Her seminar is from 12:05 to 1 p.m. in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Addition. Reisen is the host.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894