Topics for the winter quarter seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology range from the alfalfa weevil to the yellow fever mosquito. The seminar series will take place on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall beginning Jan. 5 and continuing through March 9.

Both in-person and virtual seminars will be broadcast via Zoom at https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076,  announced seminar coordinator and nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor.

The schedule:

Jan. 5, 2022
Randa Jabbour, associate professor, agroecology, University of Wyoming
Virtual seminar
Title: "Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Pest Management Research--My Alfalfa Weevil Stories" 
Host: Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Jan. 12, 2022
Sylvia Fischer, Mosquito Study Group, Department of Ecology, Genetics and Evolution, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Virtual seminar
Title: "Recent Expansion of Aedes aegypti Distribution: Are the Populations Adapting to Colder Climate Regions?"
Host: Erin "Taylor Kelly, doctoral student in the Geoffrey Attardo lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Jan. 19, 2022
Megan Meuti, assistant professor, Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University
Virtual seminar
Title: "How Do Mosquitoes Correctly Interpret Environmental Signals into Complex Seasonal Responses?"
Host: Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Jan. 26, 2022
Tobin Hammer, postdoctoral researcher, University of Texas, Austin (he will start as an assistant professor in UC Irvine's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department in January 2022)
In-person seminar
Title: "Diversity and Dynamism in Social Bee Microbiomes"
Host: Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Feb. 2, 2022 
Simon Niels Groen, assistant professor, Department of Nematology, UC Riverside 
In-person seminar
Title: "Plant Toxins and the Evolution of Host-Parasite Interactions" 
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Feb. 9, 2022
Vince D'Amico, research entomologist, Communities and Landscapes of the Urban Northwest, U.S. Department of Agriculture 
In-person seminar
Title: "Monitoring and Ecological Research in the Forests of the BosWash Megalopolis"  
Host: Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

Feb. 16, 2022
Michelle Heck, adjunct associate professor and research molecular biologist, Boyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, N.Y.
Virtual seminar
Title: Topic to be announced (Her program uses a combination of molecular, genetic, and proteomics approaches to understand how insects transmit plant pathogens and how pathogens manipulate host plants to ensure replication and transmission. A second area of research is the development of new pest management tools to enhance cultural control and to provide new management strategies for insect vector-borne diseases in plants)
Host: Tiffany Lowe-Power, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology

Feb. 23, 2022
Adam Steinbrenner, assistant professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington
In-person seminar
Title: "Plant Immune Recognition of Insect Herbivores" 
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

March 2, 2022
Erica Henry, postdoctoral scholar, conservation biology, North Carolina State University
In-person seminar
Title: "Insect Conservation in an Uncertain Future"
Host: Emily Meineke, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

March 9, 2022
Melissa Mitchum, professor, plant nematology, University of Georgia
Virtual seminar 
Title: "The Tricks Phytonematodes Use to Modulate Plant Development"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology

For any Zoom technical issues, Siddique may be reached at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu.