- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Assassin flies--so fascinating--are also commonly referred to as robber flies, and that's the very insect that UC Davis doctoral alumna Charlotte Herbert Alberts will zero in on when she presents her research at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar.
She'll discuss "Assassin Fly (Diptera: Asilidae) Systematics and Predator Ecology," at 4:10 p.m., Monday, Nov. 13 via Zoom only. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672
"Assassin flies (Diptera: Asilidae) are a diverse family that plays an essential ecological role as top aerial and venomous predators," she writes in her abstract. "Little is known about the evolution of their predatory habits. This study provides a novel phylogenetic hypothesis of Asilidae along with prey preference and ancestral state reconstruction in a maximum likelihood framework. This study is based on 176 assassin fly species, 35 Asiloidea outgroup species, 3,400 prey preference records accumulated from literature and museum collections, and approximately 7,913 bp of nuclear DNA from five genes (18S and 28S rDNA, AATS, CAD, and EF-1a protein-encoding DNA) and mitochondrial DNA from one gene (COI)."
"Of the 12 asilid subfamilies included in the analysis the monophyly of six was supported," she continued. "We used ancestral state reconstruction and stochastic character mapping to test whether a polyphagous arthropod predator is the ancestral state for Asilidae. Assassin flies are polyphagous arthropod predators, with specialized arthropod prey preferences evolving 20 independently across the Asilidae phylogeny. I will also summarize my other dissertation chapter, a review of Nearctic Saropogon with a new species description."
Alberts, who enjoys systematics, phylogenetics, insect biotechnology, genomics, speciation, and macroevolution, received her doctorate from UC Davis in 2023. She and her husband, George, and their two children are residents of Silver Spring, Md.
A native of Plainfield, N.H, Charlotte is a 2015 graduate of St. Lawrence University, Canton, N.Y., where she majored in conservation biology and developed an interest in assassin flies--and in celebrating World Robber Fly Day every April 30.
Why assassin flies? “I chose assassin flies because I fell in love researching them as an undergraduate at St. Lawrence University,” she said. "They are fascinating flies and I like that they can immediately change someone's perspective of flies. They are venomous, predatory flies that eat other insects! And they sometimes even look exactly like the creatures they eat. Example: bumble bees!”
Seminar coordinator is Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. For Zoom technical issues, he may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu. The list of seminars is posted here.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The annual meeting, hosted by the Entomological Society of America (ESA), is taking place Nov. 5-8 at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center in National Harbor, Md.
The theme: "Insects and Influence: Advancing Entomology's Impact on People and Policy."
At the helm of ESA this year--and influencing scientists, insects and the general public--are four women scientists:
- President: Marianne Alleyne, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Vice President: Jennifer Henke, Coachella Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District
- Vice President-Elect: Lina Bernaola, Texas A&M University
- Past President: Jessica Ware, American Museum of Natural History
Among the top honorees at Entomology 2023 is UC Davis doctoral alumnus Douglas Walsh, professor and Extension specialist in the Department of Entomology, Washington State University (WSU). He is one of six newly elected Fellows
"Walsh is known internationally for his research on the modes of action and resistance mechanisms of acaricides on spider mites and regionally in the Pacific Northwest for his extension and outreach efforts on specialty crops," ESA announced in a news release, citing that:
"Walsh has maintained a well-funded (more than $30 million) and productive program as the research director of the Environmental and Agricultural Entomology Laboratory located at the WSU Irrigated Agriculture Research and Extension Center in the Yakima Valley near Prosser, Washington. Walsh is the Extension integrated pest management (IPM) coordinator for Washington State and the Washington State liaison representative to the U.S. Department of Agriculture IR-4 Project."
"Walsh has an extensive and varied integrated pest and pollinator management research and Extension program assisting regionally important commodities including hops, alfalfa, grapes, and mint. Walsh also directs environmental impact studies on alfalfa leafcutting and alkali bees, the key pollinators of alfalfa produced for seed. Walsh's efforts in IPM have resulted in the documented reduction of over 100,000 pounds of insecticide use in the Pacific Northwest annually."
Born in New York in 1963 and a resident of California since 1969, Walsh holds a bachelor's degree in biology from UC Santa Cruz (1985). He received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1998, studying with major professor Frank Zalom, who went on to become a UC Davis distinguished professor and president and Honorary Member of ESA. "He is very deserving," Zalom said. "I couldn't be more proud of all that he has accomplished." Zalom is now emeritus, but continues to do research.
"I was Frank's first PhD student," Walsh said. "Frank had one before me, Rachid Hanna. Frank picked up Rachid when Rachid was orphaned when his original professor left UC Davis. Rachid and I quibble about who was Frank's first student. I'm the first that went from start to finish with Frank."
"(Professors) Sean Duffy and Harry Kaya were also on my PhD committee," Walsh said.
Outstanding Graduate Student. Kaya remembers Walsh well. "He was studying integrated pest management at UC Davis and was an outstanding graduate student in Frank Zalom's lab," Kaya said. "Even as a graduate student, he published some significant papers on IPM research, and I had no doubt that he would excel in research in his post graduate years. He has not only done superb IPM research but has been a leader in the Entomological Society of America as well as other national and international organizations. He richly deserves being elected as an ESA Fellow."
Walsh joined the WSU Department of Entomology as assistant professor in 1998 and advanced to associate professor in 2003 and to professor in 2007. The author of more than 200 publications, he annually delivers more than 35 Extension presentations. He has mentored 12 doctoral students and 11 master's degree students.
Walsh served as president of the Pacific Branch of ESA (PBESA) in 2010 and represented PBESA on the ESA governing board from 2013 through 2019. Among his ESA awards: Excellence in IPM Award and he led two teams that received the IPM Team Award.
A WSU news story (Sept. 7, 2023) related that Walsh has "worked primarily on pest control issues, mostly on hops, grape vines, mint, and alfalfa. One of his first successes at WSU in 2005 involved developing a novel method for controlling cutworms, which climb up from the soil in spring to nibble on grapevine buds."
Walsh initially set out to become a botanist. “I was working in a local Extension office in California after I got my bachelor's degree," he told the WSU writer Scott Weybright. "That work involved battling spider mites on strawberries. I kind of fell into entomology, but I love the work and the creative solutions we find to help growers."
His wife, Catherine (Kikie) is a senior software engineer with Altera Digital, a hospital software firm. The couple, married 35 years, raised three children, Claire, Russ, and Jeff, all WSU grads. Claire is the lifecycle marketing manager with Niantic Labs; Russ is working toward his master's degree in teaching at WSU Tri-Cities: and Jeff is a site reliability engineer at TikTok.
Other newly inducted ESA Fellows are:
- Cassandra Extavour, Harvard University
- James Hagler, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service
- Alvin M. Simmons, U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service
- Lukasz Stelinski, University of Florida
- Edward L. Vargo, Texas A&M University
Founded in 1889, ESA is a worldwide organization of more than 7000 members, who are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Human: "It's the end of Daylight Savings Time!"
Praying Mantis: "The end of Daylight Savings Time? Does that mean I have to stop scaring the livin' daylights out of a bee?"
Human: "No, it's when we humans set the clocks forward by one hour in the spring, and then in the fall, we set the clocks back an hour."
Praying Mantis: "So if I catch a bee today at 4 p.m., it's actually 5 p.m."
Human: "Correct."
Praying Mantis: "And if I eat the bee at 4:05, it's actually 5:05 p.m."
Human: "Correct!"
Praying Mantis: "And if I catch another bee at 5:30 p.m., it's actually 6:30 p.m.?"
Human: "Correct again! Go to the head of the class!"
Praying Mantis: "Why do you humans have Daylight Savings Time?"
Human: "To get more daylight in the spring. Did you know that New Zealand entomologist George Hudson first proposed modern Daylight Savings Time, so that after his work shift, he could get more daylight to collect insects?"
Praying Mantis: "He wanted to collect ME?"
Human: "Yes, and other insects. He won the Hector Memorial Medal in 1923 for proposing Daylight Savings Time."
Praying Mantis: "But still, why would I want to get up an hour earlier in the spring? Honey bees don't leave their colony to forage until it's around 55 degrees."
Human: "Haven't you heard? Early to bed and early to rise makes a MANTIS healthy, wealthy and wise!"
Praying Mantis: "Go away before I mistake you for a bee."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No, say many scientists, including Hugh Dingle, professor emeritus of entomology, behavior and evolution at UC Davis.
Professor Dingle is an internationally known expert on animal migration. He's researched animal migration for some 50 years. In the last 20 years or so, he has focused on monarch butterflies. He has authored two editions of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move and some 100 papers. National Geographic featured Professor Dingle in its cover story on “Great Migrations” in November 2010. LiveScience interviewed him for its November 2010 piece on “Why Do Animals Migrate?” (See news story that includes his biographical information)
Professor Dingle, a resident of Marin County, responded to a recent front-page article in a Marin County paper about the California ban on tropical milkweed. Banning tropical milkweed, A. curassavica, will NOT save the monarch, Dingle emailed the reporter. In fact, he said, the ban will "essentially have zero effect on monarchs" and "no one should rush out and pull out their tropical milkweed as it would be a waste of time and effort. Nurseries should also be able to continue to sell it."
The professor shared this with Bug Squad:
- "There is not enough tropical milkweed planted to have much influence (see the amount of A. syriaca and A. fascicularis throughout the American West not to mention various other species like A. erosa, cordifolia, californica, etc.) Yes, there are parasites on A. curassavica as there are on ALL milkweeds."
- "There are populations of monarchs that are doing just fine feeding exclusively on A. curassavica (e.g. on many Pacific Islands, such as Guam where I have studied them."
- "Migration and the diapause that accompanies it in the fall are determined by shortening photoperiod and temperature (warm temps can override short days hence the issue with climate change). There is no significant influence of food plant."
Tropical milkweed has been in California for more than a century. It's along our roadsides, in our parks, in our gardens. If the California border were moved a bit, it would be a native plant. Yet the California Department of Food and Agriculture, influenced by native plant proponents, has deemed it a "noxious weed."
Professor Dingle is among many scientists who point out that milkWEED (despite the "weed" in its name), is NOT a noxious plant. If you're standing on the California-Mexico border, on one side it's a noxious weed (evil, dangerous, nasty, get-rid-of-it-now, how-dare-you) and inches away, it's a beautiful host plant for monarchs, and a great nectar source for monarchs and other pollinators, including honey bees, syrphid flies and hummingbirds.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife's ban on rearing monarchs (no one can do so without a permit) is unsettling to many. Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the Lepidoptera collection at the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis and is a member of the Lepidopterists' Society, reared a few monarchs as a child, but laments that today, no one in California can do so without a permit, and it's difficult to get a permit unless you're a researcher.
In the latest edition of the Lepidopterists' Society newsletter, Robert Michael Pyle (founder of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation) and David Wagner wrote a piece, "Keep Nets in the Hands of Kids--and Others!"
An excerpt: "Give a kid a net, and watch her go! Not that the net is the only porthole into our world. For some it could be raising caterpillars or tadpoles, keeping mantises and walking sticks as pets, or examining ants, beetles, and grass- hoppers through a magnifying glass. But the common feature is having hands-on, unfettered exploration of the living world as children. Many life-science professionals, including RMP's cardiologist, ascribe their passion for life and nature to hunting bugs, crawdads, and pollywogs in their youth. This is why the Society instituted the Outernet Project, to get nets into the hands of children—a task made more difficult not only by the umbilical USB connection now present at birth and children's subsequent inseparability from electronica, but also by the loss of BioQuip. Is the coup de grâce for children's face-to-face fascination with small-scale life to be delivered now by well-intended but ill-considered regulation?"
So Very Controversial. Amazing that tropical milkweed issue has become so very controversial. You cannot post an image of a egg, caterpillar, chrysalis or a monarch on A. curassavica--a food and nectar source--without a native plant proponent attacking you and ordering you to remove that tropical plant in your garden immediately. (Never mind that you are growing native milkweed as well.) One scientist told me: "They just want to control you and bully you."
In our pollinator garden in Vacaville, monarchs prefer tropical milkweed over the non-natives. Tropical is more toxic.
Mona Miller, who administers the popular Facebook page, Creating Habitat For Butterflies, Moths, & Pollinators, related: "Monarch are resilient insects, they have so many strategies to increase their population, but they do have their limits. We must stop pulling out tropical milkweed and cutting it back. Washing off all milkweed should suffice to clean off the OE spores. I emailed several scientists, no one could tell me that OE (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha is a protozoan parasite) has any way to attach to milkweed leaves other than getting caught in the hairs. Tropical milkweed has smooth leaves. Tropical milkweed has been in California since 1909, that is over 100 years. Totally eradicating tropical milkweed, just like totally eradicating all the eucalyptus trees (non-natives), would have a detrimental effect on the monarch population--perhaps it already has."
Indeed, folks should pay more attention to habitat loss and pesticide use, the real culprits of the monarch population decline.
Bohart Museum Open House. At any rate, be sure to attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on monarchs from 1 to 4 p.m., Saturday, Nov. 4 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis. It's free and family friendly. A number of scientists will be there to answer your questions.
Scheduled to participate are:
- UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, who has studied butterfly populations in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website, Art's Butterfly World.
- UC Davis emeritus professor Hugh Dingle, a worldwide authority on animal migration, including monarchs. He is the author of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996. See news story on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
- UC Davis professor Louie Yang, who does research on monarchs. Due to parental duties, he may be able to attend only the last part of the open house. See news story about his work.
- UC Davis professor Elizabeth Crone of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs. See news story about the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a living insect petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, among others), and a insect-themed gift shop. UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey has directed the Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, since 1990.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
We haven't had a cat since our 16-year-old tuxedo, Xena the Warrior Princess crossed the Rainbow Bridge in March of 2016. She sported a butterflylike marking on her left leg.
Monarch butterflies fascinated her. They brought out "the princess" instead of "the warrior" in her.
If you don't have a cat or a feline pollinator partner, plant milkweed and you'll get another kind of 'cat, the larvae of monarch butterflies, Danaus plexippus.
Today we have several 'cats on our tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, in our Vacaville garden. None this year on our narrowleafed milkweed, A. fascicularis; showy milkweed, A. speciosa; or butterfly weed, A. tuberosa.
If you want to learn more about monarchs, their life cycle, milkweed and other related topics, attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house on Saturday, Nov. 4 from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis. The theme is "Monarchs" and scientists will be there to answer your questions.
The event is free and family friendly and a great opportunity to learn more about D. plexippus.
The scientists will include:
- UC Davis distinguished professor emeritus Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, who has studied butterfly populations in central California since 1972 and maintains a research website, Art's Butterfly World.
- UC Davis emeritus professor Hugh Dingle, a worldwide authority on animal migration, including monarchs. He is the author of Migration: The Biology of Life on the Move (Oxford University Press), a sequel to the first edition published in 1996. See news story on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
- UC Davis professor Louie Yang, who does research on monarchs. Due to parental duties, he may be able to attend only the last part of the open house. See news story about his work.
- UC Davis professor Elizabeth Crone of the Department of Evolution and Ecology, formerly of Tufts University, who researches monarchs. See news story about the declining monarch population on the UC Davis Entomology and Nematology website.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a living insect petting zoo (Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, among others), and a insect-themed gift shop. UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey has directed the Bohart Museum, founded in 1946, since 1990.