- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The event, free, family friendly and educational, is always held on Presidents' Day weekend. It's billed as a time "to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists from undergraduate students to staff to emeritus professors and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us."
The times will be staggered. Some collections will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., and others, from noon to 4 p.m. Here's a list of what you can see, with links to their websites:
Room 1124 and hallway of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive
340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven (Noon to 4 p.m.)
Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
Marine Invertebrate Collection (not linked) (Noon to 4 p.m.)
Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lame
Paleontology Collection (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
Phaff Yeast Culture Collection (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
Viticulture Enology Culture Collection (9 a.m. to 1 p.m.)
Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
Want a peek at what happened last year? See the YouTube video, the work of UC Davis student Alexander Fisher-Wagner.
There will be plenty of attractions for youngsters, including the insect petting zoo at the Bohart Museum; dinosaur bones at the Paleontology Collection; carnivorous plants at the Conservatory; Vegemite and Kombucha (to eat!) at the Yeast Collection; demonstrations of eagles and hawks and other birds at the Raptor Center; prehistoric tool demonstrations (flint knapping, atlatl throwing) at tje Anthropology Collection; leaf rubbing and olive wreath crown making at the Arboretum; insect vacuum for observation at the Bee Haven, and pine cone petting zoo at the Herbarium.
Yes, you can pet stick insects at the Bohart Museum and pet pine cones at the Herbarium.
Meanwhile, you can find more information on the Biodiversity Museum Day website. (More information is pending)
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No, it's not Valentine's Day, yet.
Yes, the almonds are blooming.
No, it's not spring.
But it looks like spring in Benicia.
The almonds are blooming in the Benicia (Calif.) State Recreation Area.
Some are on the road at the entrance to the park.
Other trees are also blooming.
Benicia resident Gordon Hough, always on the lookout for those early blooms and elusive bees, photographed a honey bee nectaring on a Bradford pear blossom (as identified by Daniel Potter, UC Davis professor of plant sciences) in the Benicia park on Monday, Jan. 21. Gorgeous image!
Benicia (or Bee-nicia?) is graced with early almond blooms. We remember heading over to the Benicia State Recreation Area on the first day of 2014 and seeing almonds in bloom. Actually, several almond trees in the parking lot were blooming on Christmas Day of 2013. (See Bug Squad)
Meanwhile, California's commercial almond pollination season usually begins around Feb. 14.
Our state has more than a million acres of almonds in production, according to Kyle Kapustka of the Almond Board of California.
The 2017 California Almond Acreage Report, from USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), released April 25, 2018, estimated
- 1,330,000 total almond acres in California
- 1,000,000 bearing acres in California
The 1.3 million acres is up 7 percent from the 2016 acreage of 1,240,000, according to the report. "Nonpareil continued to be the leading variety, followed by Monterey, Butte, Carmel and Padre. Kern, Fresno, Stanislaus, Merced and Madera were the leading counties. These five counties had 73 percent of the total bearing acreage." (See overview of the almond industry on the Almond Board of California website)
Solano County, home of seven cities, including Bee-nicia, isn't one of them.
But don't tell that to the bees.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But you should be.
You should especially be thinking about the zebra chip. No, it's not a newly marketed potato chip or computer chip.
Basically, it's a disease of potatoes transmitted by the potato psyllid. It's caused by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum.
The disease, first identified in 1994 near Saltillo, Mexico, causes major economic damage and is spreading throughout much of the United States, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska and New Mexico.
"When fried, potato tubers from infected plants develop unsightly black lines resembling the stripes of zebras that render the chips unsellable," according to Wikipedia. "Additionally, striped sections of chips frequently burn and caramelize, resulting in a bitter flavor. No health risks have been connected with consumption of infected potato chips."
The Yakima (Wash.) Herald spotlighted zebra chip in a May 2015 news story featuring Rodney Cooper, a research entomologist with the USDA's Agricultural Research Service laboratory in Wapato, Wash., and Jenita Thinakaran, then a postdoctoral research associate at the laboratory.
And now, Thinakaran, a UC Davis postdoctoral researcher based at the Shafter (Calif.) Agricultural Research Station, will present a UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar on "A Systems Approach to Managing Potato Psyllid in Relation to Its Alternate Hosts" at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 23 in 122 Briggs Hall.
In his news story, Yakima-Herald reporter Ross Courtney described the disease as "a brown, streaky condition inside the flesh of the tubers most noticeable after they've been sliced and fried, such as for potato chips."
Researchers don't believe the infected potatoes pose any health threat, but farmers know customers won't buy them, Courtney related. "Research is underway, but the stakes could be high. The disease shows up in several countries around the world. In New Zealand, zebra chip cost growers $22.5 million in 2010 and 2011, according to a 2012 paper by Joseph Munyaneza, a Wapato laboratory colleague of the two researchers. In northern Mexico, zebra chip has been known to wipe out 60 percent of the crop, forcing farmers to abandon entire fields. Tomato and pepper farmers throughout the world have noticed crop losses due to the same bacteria."
What about potato psyllids in California?
"Psyllids used to be an occasional problem in California in certain years when they would migrate into the state from Mexico," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) website. "In recent years, however, a more invasive form of the species has been found in California that has the ability to overwinter in parts of southern California. Potato psyllid now occurs on a yearly basis in these areas and has become a chronic problem."
UC IPM describes the pest as looking like a "small cicada, about 0.08 inch (2 mm) long" and related to aphids and leafhoppers. "The adult has clear wings that rest rooflike over the body," UC IPM says. "Although predominantly black, the potato psyllid does possess white markings. The first abdominal segment shows a broad white band, the last segment has an inverted white 'V.' Psyllids jump quite readily when disturbed."
"The football-shaped eggs are extremely small, slightly larger than leaf hairs, and on a short stalk. They are usually on the underside of the leaf along the edge and in the upper plant canopy. A 10X hand lens is required to see them."
Thinakaran, who holds a doctorate in horticulture from Texas A&M University, College Station, completed her dissertation in 2014 on "Evaluation of Potato Psyllid, Bactericera cockerelli (suic) (Hemiptera: Triozidae), Host Preferences, Adaptation, Behavior and Transmission of 'Candidatus Liberibacter solanacearum' among Wild and Cultivated Solanaceous Hosts in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas." She studied with major professors Don Henne and Elizabeth Pierson.
At her UC Davis seminar, Thinakaran will discuss the economic damage of the pest, its hosts, and her ongoing research. "The research I will be presenting relates to my previous work at Texas A&M and USDA-ARS. Dr. Don Henne (presently with Lakehead University, Canada), Drs. Joseph Munyaneza, Rodney Cooper and David Horton with USDA-ARS and Dr. Andy Jensen (Northwest Potato Research Consortium)," she relates.
The potato psyllid "causes economic damage to potato crops throughout the major potato growing regions along the Rocky mountain corridor," she writes in her abstract. "Settling and oviposition preferences were studied on its wild and cultivated solanaceous hosts, including potato, tomato, pepper, eggplant, and silverleaf nightshade (SLN). Silverleaf nightshade is a common weed in the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas and a host for both the potato psyllid and Lso pathogen. Results of settling and oviposition studies indicated that potato psyllid preferred potato and tomato equally for settling and oviposition, but settled on pepper, eggplant, and SLN. Transmission studies determined that potato psyllid can acquire Lso within a 2-week acquisition period on Lso-infected SLN and can serve as a reservoir for Lso, providing a source of inoculum for potato psyllid adults colonizing potato during the following season. Under laboratory conditions, potato psyllid preferred larger host plants, regardless of the species tested. Lone plants attracted the most psyllids and can be used as sentinel plants to monitor potato psyllid activity. When cultivated crops are not available, potato psyllid often occurs on non-crop hosts.
"To test the hypothesis that potato psyllid are year-round residents, not migrants from more southern regions, monitoring of Lycium spp. was undertaken in the Pacific Northwest (PNW) throughout the year from June 2014 to June 2016," Thinakaran relates. "Lycium in the PNW occurs as two different species and collectively referred as matrimony vine and Goji berry. Not knowing the source of psyllids makes it difficult to predict when and in what fields the psyllids will arrive. Our monitoring results provide circumstantial evidence that matrimony vine is a source of potato psyllid arriving in potato fields of the PNW. All 14 stands of matrimony vine that were examined in Washington, Idaho and Oregon were found to be infested with potato psyllid suggesting that association of potato psyllid with matrimony vine in the PNW is common and widespread and that matrimony vine is also a host when the potato crop is seasonally not available."
Thinakaran points out that "psyllids began showing up in potato fields at virtually the same time that they were disappearing from matrimony vine, coinciding with the onset of summer defoliation. Indeed, psyllid numbers on matrimony vine in the spring may be found to accurately predict the numbers of psyllids that eventually migrate into potato. Ongoing research in 2018 and beyond will reveal whether matrimony vine can be used by growers as an early warning system to predict the risk of potato psyllids colonizing potato fields."
Thinakaran received three degrees in India: her bachelor of science degree in agriculture and her master's degree in agricultural entomology, both from TamilNadu Agricultural University in Coimbatore, and her master of business administration (MBA) in operations management from Indira Gandhi National Open University in New Delhi. She owned and operated an agro business in Coimbatore until her career took her to TamilNadu as a senior research fellow and then to Texas A&M for her doctoral studies.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminars, coordinated by medical entomologist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, are held every Wednesday at 4:10 p.m. in Briggs Hall. (See schedule.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A recent article in Science headlined "Once Considered Outlandish, the Idea that Plants Help their Relatives Is Taking Root," and dealing with how plants communicate, is drawing widespread attention.
Wrote Elizabeth Pennisi: "For people, and many other animals, family matters. Consider how many jobs go to relatives. Or how an ant will ruthlessly attack intruder ants but rescue injured, closely related nestmates. There are good evolutionary reasons to aid relatives, after all. Now, it seems, family feelings may stir in plants as well."
"A Canadian biologist planted the seed of the idea more than a decade ago, but many plant biologists regarded it as heretical—plants lack the nervous systems that enable animals to recognize kin, so how can they know their relatives? But with a series of recent findings, the notion that plants really do care for their most genetically close peers—in a quiet, plant-y way—is taking root. Some species constrain how far their roots spread, others change how many flowers they produce, and a few tilt or shift their leaves to minimize shading of neighboring plants, favoring related individuals."
Pennisi quoted ecologist Richard "Rick" Karban, professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, for her piece. An international authority on plant communication, he authored the 240-page book, Plant Sensing and Communication (University of Chicago Press), considered a landmark in its field.
An excerpt from Science: "Sagebrush bushes (Artemisia tridentata) have provided some strong clues, however. When injured by herbivores, these plants release volatile chemicals that stimulate neighboring sagebrush to make chemicals toxic to their shared enemies. Ecologist Richard Karban at the University of California, Davis, wondered whether kin were preferentially warned. His group had already found that sagebrush plants roughly fall into two "chemotypes," which mainly emit either camphor or another organic compound called thujone when their leaves are damaged. The team showed that the chemotypes are heritable, making them a potential kin recognition signal. In 2014, the researchers reported that when volatiles from a plant of one chemotype were applied to the same type of plant, those plants mounted stronger antiherbivore defenses and had much less insect damage than when the volatiles were applied to a plant of the other chemotype—a hint of a kin effect."
She concluded with a quote from Karban: "We are learning that plants are capable of so much more sophisticated behavior than we had thought. It's really cool stuff."
Update?
"We aren't actually doing more work that addresses the issue of kin recognition," Karban told us. "We have found that sagebrush plants communicate more effectively with kin than strangers and more effectively with other individuals that belong to the same 'chemotype' as they do. Chemotypes are similar to blood types - they represent chemical variation among individuals in the population. As with blood types, it is puzzling why this variation exists. The cues that sagebrush use to communicate are potentially extremely complex; we can identify on the order of 100 volatile compounds that are emitted by damaged foliage. This gives an enormous number of possible 'words' that could provide information in the 'language' that the plants may be using. Since the chemotypes differ in only a few compounds, we are hoping that focusing on chemotypic variation will provide some clues that help us begin to decipher the language of the plants.
Karban has researched plant communication in Artemisia tridentataon the east side of the Sierra since 1995. His groundbreaking research on plant communication among kin, published in February 2013 in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, drew international attention. In that study, Karban and his co-researchers found that kin have distinct advantages when it comes to plant communication, just as “the ability of many animals to recognize kin has allowed them to evolve diverse cooperative behaviors.”
“Plants responded more effectively to volatile cues from close relatives than from distant relatives in all four experiments and communication reduced levels of leaf damage experienced over the three growing seasons,” Karban wrote.
The gist of it: if you're a sagebrush and a predator (such as a grasshopper) is eating your nearby kin, another sagebrush, it's good to be closely related. Through volatile (chemical) cues, your kin will inform you of the danger so you can adjust your defenses. Yes, plants can communicate.
We remember asking Karban several years go "the 10 things to know about plant sensing and communication." According to Karban:
- Plants sense their environments and respond.
- Although they lack central nervous systems, they process information and appear to "behave intelligently."
- They sense the position of competitors and "forage" for light.
- They sense the availability of water and nutrients in the soil and "forage" for these resources.
- Their decisions are influenced by past experiences, akin to memory.
- They respond to reliable cues that predict future events, allowing them to "anticipate."
- Plants respond differently to cues that they themselves produce, allowing them to distinguish self from non-self.
- They respond differently to close relatives and strangers.
- Plants that are prevented from sensing or responding experience reduced fitness.
- By understanding the "language" of plant responses, we can grow healthier and more productive plants.
The most basic form of communication? When a plant is being shaded, it senses the diminished light quality caused by a competitor and responds by moving away, Karban says.
Karban's work on plant communication is featured in a 2016 interactive lesson plan, TED-Ed Original Lessons where "words and ideas of educators are brought to life by professional animators.” Plants can eavesdrop, sense danger in the environment, and can distinguish friend from foe, he says.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Several UC Davis bumble bee enthusiasts--encouraged by native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology--compete every January to find the first bumble bee of the year in Yolo and Solano counties.
It's a friendly competition. Gamers include Allan Jones, Gary Zamzow, both of Davis, and yours truly.
We have a winner!
Drum roll...
On Thursday, Jan. 10 doctoral student Kim Chacon photographed a black-tailed bumble bee, Bombus melanopygus, on manzanita blossoms in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.
What a delightful find! And in between the rain drops!
This species is native to western North America, ranging from California to British Columbia and as far east as Idaho. It's commonly found on manzanitas, wild lilacs, wild buckwheats, lupines, penstemons, clovers, and sages, among others.
Chacon actually spotted an earlier bumble bee on Jan. 9 at 2:10 p.m. in the UC Davis Arboreutm, but had only her cell phone with her that day. It was a Bombus melanopygus on Arbutus in the Ericaceae section.
She captured some images with her cell phone, but "there was a big downpour about 15 minutes and I didn't bring my good camera, so I went home for the day. I know from my research that this particular location in the Arboretum is a hot spot for bees. The banks and flowering vegetation get plenty of sun. There are three possible spots in the Arboretum, according to my research, and this one had blooming flowers first."
But on Jan. 10, "I woke up determined to get good photos with my good camera!" She walked over to the Ericaceae section again in the Arboretum and spotted a Bombus melanopygus at 3:58 p.m. (See photos below)
Chacon, a UC Davis PhD student in geography, studies "habitat connectivity issues for bees at a landscape scale."
"Lack of habitat connectivity is listed as the main reason for native bee declines and yet, thus far solutions only include stand alone gardens, with randomly spaced unspecified plant species," she commented. "A spatial habitat problem such as destruction and fragmentation needs a spatial solution. I am working on solving this complex problem with the help of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Part of my research involved weekly monitoring bee visitation of bees throughout the UC Davis Arboretum for one full year. I learned about the trends of bee-flower visitation within each unique themed garden, specifically, how they function as novel ecosystems. When I graduate I hope to design effectively connected landscape habitat for bees. I would also love to design educational gardens, showcasing bee diversity!"
Chacon is a 2018 alumnus of The Bee Course, a nine-day intensive workshop affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History and held annually at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz. It's offered for conservation biologists, pollination ecologists, and other biologists who want to gain greater knowledge of the systematics and biology of bees. This year's dates are Aug. 18-28, and the deadline to apply is March 1, 2019.
Thorp is one of the veteran instructors of The Bee Course; he has taught there annually since 2002. A member of the UC Davis entomology faculty from 1964 to 1994 and internationally recognized for his expertise on bees, he achieved "distinguished emeritus professor" status in 2015. He co-authored the UC California book, California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday) and Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University Press).
Thorp continues his research, writings and bee identification at his office in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis.