April 30, 2012
DAVIS--Professor and nematologist Ed Lewis, vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology with a joint appointment in the Department of Nematology, will speak on "Infection Behaviors of Parasitic Nematodes: The Story of the Slithering Herd" at the Friday, May 4th seminar of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group(ABGG)
Lewis' talk, open to all interested persons, is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 194 Young Hall.
On his website, Lewis says:
"My research program is wide-ranging in the scope of the questions asked and in the taxa that are studied. There is, however, a common thread to the work that takes place in my laboratory; we seek to understand why and how organisms find, recognize, assess and exploit resources. We ask questions about how insects and nematodes make decisions about resource utilization and what the fitness outcomes of the decisions are. To answer these kinds of questions, we engage in studies of behavior, population ecology, community ecology and evolutionary biology with several groups of insects, nematodes and bacteria. There are also intentional links to more practical pursuits including biological control of crop pests, predicting the impact of crop management on pest and beneficial organisms and restoration ecology. I see no difference between what is traditionally called 'basic' and 'applied' research, thus the links of nearly all of the work in the laboratory to agricultural or environmental concerns is explicit."
ABGG, an interdepartmental program which offers doctoral degrees, trains students for teaching and research in a wide variety of disciplines, including anthropology, animal science, conservation biology, ecology, entomology, neurobiology, psychology, physiology, veterinary science, wildlife biology, and zoology. Faculty members from several departments, schools, and colleges participate.
Lewis received his bachelor of science degree in natural resources from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.; his master's degree in entomology from the University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.; and his doctorate in entomology from Auburn (Ala.) University.
Other ABGG seminars scheduled through June 1:
May 11: ABGG exit seminar: "Innovative Nursery-Rearing for Improving Welfare in Rhesus Macaques," Becki Bruneli, UC Davis
May 18: ABGG exit seminar: "The Development of Antipredator Behavior in White-Faced Capuchin Monkeys," Whitney Meno, UC Davis
May 25: ABGG exit seminar: "Captive Primate Welfare: Basing Management on Empirical Research," Daniel Gottlieb, UC Davis
June 1: ABGG exit seminar: "The Squawking (about) Dead: Using Dead Conspecifics and Heterospecifics as Cues of Risk," Teresa Iglesias, UC Davis
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894