- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Think bed bugs, cockroaches, carpet beetles and pantry pests, among others.
Those are some of the critters you'll learn about if you attend the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on urban entomology, set from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 18 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It's free and family friendly.
Karey Windbiel-Rojas of the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM)--she's the associate director for Urban and Community IPM who serves as the area urban IPM advisor for Yolo, Sacramento and Solano counties--will be there to greet visitors and answer questions, as will Bohart Museum scientists and staff.
The pests the UC IPM scientist has been dealing with lately include carpet beetles, bed bugs and pantry pests. She'll hand out two newly published Quick Tips on carpet beetles and pantry pests, as well as information on other pests. What are some of the other pests? UC IPM's Quick Tips library ("some are household insects, some are pests in the garden/landscape, and some are obviously not arthropods") is here: http://ipm.ucanr.edu/QT/index.html.
The open house will focus on both household and garden insects, said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis. "The focus is urban entomology," she said. "We'll have out examples of all the wonderful household pests/friends and garden pests, along with the kinds of things they inspect restaurants for."
Like cockroaches, which thrive in human habitats and date back 350 millions years ago.
As an aside, Windbiel-Rojas promises to wear--or display--her cockroach costume that she wore on Halloween.
For the family arts and crafts activity, visitors will create mosaics rice in various colors. The youngsters will layer the colors in glass jars with lids. "This can serve as pretty artwork but also remind their parents to store grains in tightly sealed containers to keep pantry pests from infesting," Windbiel-Rojas said.
At a previous open house, youngsters glued dried rice and beans on insect images created by UC Davis entomology student/artist Karissa Merritt. It proved to be a popular activity.
Entomologist Jeff Smith, who curates the butterfly and moth collection at the Bohart, will be among the scientists at the open house. He worked in the pesticide industry for years, training people about entomology, noted Tabatha Yang, the Bohart's education and outreach coordinator.
The open house is free and open to the public. A donation jar will be set up to help Bohart Museum specialist Brennen Dyer; he and his wife lost their home in the wildfire fueled by strong winds that destroyed most of Paradise, Butte County. Profits from the sale of items in the gift shop on Sunday are also earmarked for the Dyers. (See Bug Squad blog.)
The Bohart Museum, home of nearly eight million insect specimens, is the seventh largest insect collection in North America and houses the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of insect biodiversity. In addition, the Bohart features a live "petting zoo," comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, tarantulas and praying mantids; and a year-around gift shop, which is stocked with T-shirts, sweatshirts, books, jewelry, posters, insect-collecting equipment and insect-themed candy.
Other public weekend hours for the academic year 2018-2019 are:
- Saturday, Jan. 12, from 1 to 4 p.m.: "Time's Fun When You're Studying Flies"
- Saturday, Feb. 16, times vary: (campuswide) Biodiversity Museum Day
- Saturday, March 9, 1 to 4 p.m., "Eight-Legged Wonders"
- Saturday, April 14, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., (campuswide) UC Davis Picnic Day
The Bohart Museum's regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. It is closed to the public on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and on major holidays. Admission is free. More information on the Bohart Museum is available on the website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by contacting (530) 752-0493 or emailing bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That would be world-renowned honey bee geneticist Robert Eugene (“Rob”) Page Jr., the 2018 recipient of the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. His work includes the book, The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution, published by Harvard University Press in 2013.
Page will deliver the Leigh seminar--appropriately titled "In Search of the Spirit of the Hive: a 30-Year Quest"--at 4 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 29 in the International House, 10 College Park, Davis.
With close ties to UC Davis, Page received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis and served as a professor and chair of the UC Davis entomology department before capping his academic career as the Arizona State University (ASU) provost. He maintained a honey bee breeding program managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility, UC Davis, for 24 years, from 1989 to 2015.
Now provost emeritus of ASU and Regents Professor since 2015, he continues his research, teaching and public service in both Arizona and California and has residences in both states. He plans to move to California in December.
Page focuses his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
His contributions to the California beekeeping industry--notably the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding theory--are legendary, says bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of Washington State University and formerly of UC Davis, where she managed the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. "This has offered a practical system of stock improvement for honey bees, used worldwide. My career has been based upon applying this theory to develop and maintaining a population of Carniolan bees, now in their 36th generation."
"Often there is a large gap between research and industry interests and the impacts can be slow to be realized,"Cobey said. "The beauty of this system is that it is practical and addresses the unique challenges of honey bee stock improvement."
Traditional animal breeding models do not apply well to honey bees, Cobey explained. "Queens mate in flight with numerous drones and selection is based upon complex behaviors at the colony level. Rob's work in the behavior of social insects and contributions toward mapping the honey bee genomic opened new doors in bee research."
A native of Bakersfield, Kern County, Page received his bachelor's degree in entomology, with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University in 1976. After receiving his doctorate from UC Davis, he began his career at The Ohio State University, in 1986 and then returned to Davis in 1989 to accept an associate professor position in 1989. He served as department chair from 1999 to 2004, when he was recruited to be the founding director of the School of Life Sciences of ASU. His career advanced to dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and provost.
Among his many honors:
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
- Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize - the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists).
- Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences.
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
- Elected to the Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences (the longest continuing academy in the world)
- Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.
- Fellow of the Entomological Society of America.
- Awardee of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship.
- Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences.
- Fellow, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich, Germany, September 2017-August 2018
The Leigh seminar memorializes cotton entomologist Thomas Frances Leigh (1923-1993), an international authority on the biology, ecology and management of arthropod pests affecting cotton production. During his 37-year UC Davis career, based at the Shafter Research and Extension Center, also known as the U.S. Cotton Research Station, Leigh researched pest and beneficial arthropod management in cotton fields, and host plant resistance in cotton to insects, mites, nematodes and diseases. In his memory, his family and associates established the Leigh Distinguished Alumni Seminar Entomology Fund at the UC Davis Department of Entomology. When his wife, Nina, passed in 2002, the alumni seminar became known as the Thomas and Nina Distinguished Alumni Seminar.
For information on the Rob Page seminar, contact Nicole Brunn at nbrunn@ucdavis.edu. A reception is planned for 3 p.m.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The incredible University of California Linnaean Games Team, comprised of graduate students from UC Davis and UC Berkeley, won the national championship at the popular and highly competitive Linnaean Games hosted this week at the Entomological Society of America's meeting in Vancouver, B.C.
This makes the third year that a UC Davis-based team has won the national championship.
"In the final, UC defeated Texas A&M (graduate students), 140-20," said Joe Rominiecki, manager of communications for the Entomological Society of America (ESA). "UC defeated the University of Florida 110-100 in the semifinal round. In the preliminary round, UC defeated the Texas A&M undergrad team."
The Linnaean Games, launched in 1983, are lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competitions on entomological facts and played by winners of the ESA branch competitions. The teams score points by correctly answering random questions.
The UC team is comprised of captain Ralph Washington Jr., a UC Davis entomology graduate who is studying public policy at UC Berkeley; UC Davis doctoral students Brendon Boudinot, Jill Oberski and Zachary Griebenow, all of Phil Ward lab, specializing in ants; and UC Davis doctoral student Emily Bick of the Christian Nansen lab, a lab that specializes in insect ecology, integrated pest management and remote sensing.
In the first round, the UC team defeated the Texas A&M undergrads, the defending champions, by 120 to 0. "In the second round, we played Florida (including doctoral candidate David Plotkin, who specializes in the systematics and morphology of emerald moths), and won it in a nail-biting competition down to the last question!" said Boudinot. "Our final round was against the Texas A&M grads."
"Before us, there was a sudden death double overtime game (Texas A&M grads vs University of Delaware) which was really exciting," Boudinot said.
Griebenow recalled that among the questions the UC team correctly answered in the championship round:
Question: The longest-lived lepidopteran is a wooly-bear moth in the Arctiidae. In what habitat would you find these?
Answer: Arctic tundra
Question: The Passandridae are a family of beetles. What is unusual about their larvae?
Answer: The larvae are e ectoparasitoids of wood-boring insects.
The UC Davis Linnaean Games Team, captained by Washington, won the national championship twice, defeating the University of Georgia in 2016 and the University of Florida in 2015. Boudinot served on both championship teams, and Bick, the 2016 team. Last year UC Davis did not compete. Texas A&M won the national championship, with Ohio State University finishing second.
Each ESA branch hosts a Linnaean game competition at its annual meeting. The winning team and the runner-up both advance to the national competition. The national preliminaries took place Sunday, Nov. 11 while the finals got underway at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 13.
Members of the winning team will each receive a gold medal and and a plaque for the team's department.
To get to the national finals, the UC team won the regional championship hosted by the Pacific Branch of ESA at its meeting June 10-13 in Reno. They defeated Washington State University in a sudden death overtime to win the title.
Congrats, UC Linnaean Team!
(Editor's Note: More information and photos are pending.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It was, though.
And it will be again when it's rebuilt.
#ParadiseStrong.
The raging inferno known as "Camp Fire" that started Nov. 8 on Camp Creek Road, near Pulga, Butte County, California, ranks as the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in the state's history.
As of today: 48 fatalities, 130,000 acres burned, and at least 8,817 structures destroyed, including almost all of what was the city of Paradise.
“Ninety-five percent of the town is gone,” Paradise council member Michael Zuccolillo told the San Francisco Chronicle in a news story published Nov. 10. “The remaining 5 percent of buildings are barely standing. I felt like I was living in a bad dream. It was unrecognizable. I had to keep asking, ‘Where are we?' All the landmarks are gone. Block by block, nothing. Anybody who had a house in Paradise probably doesn't anymore.”
"Anybody who had a house in Paradise probably doesn't anymore.”
On the UC Davis front, a couple with ties to the Bohart Museum of Entomology lost their home.
Entomologist Brennen Dyer, a specialist at the Bohart Museum, and his wife, Carol, are reeling from the tragedy. Carol barely escaped with her life.
Dyer, who grew up in Paradise and earned a bachelor of science degree in entomology from UC Davis last spring, related that he and Carol had been renting a house there while he was attending college--first at Butte Community College, and then at UC Davis. "I was a tutor at my community college," he said, "and became one again for Lynn's entomology lab." That would be Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and UC Davis professor of entomology.
It was Professor Kimsey who encouraged him to set up a gofundme page.
"Brennen and his wife Carol, lost their home in Paradise in the Camp Fire on Friday," Kimsey related. "I encouraged him to start a gofundme page to raise funds to pay for housing. Even though he's renting a room in an apartment in Davis, it's not enough room for both of them (she lived and worked in Paradise). Carol only managed to save some clothes before escaping the fire. They have no money saved due in part to student loans and will need several thousand dollars for first and last month's rent and security deposit for an apartment in Woodland."
"Also, the donation jar at the Bohart Museum (located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane) will go to them and any profits from the gift shop, so come and shop," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. "This starts now and will go through Sunday during our open house on Urban Entomology from 1 to 4 p.m."
On the gofundme page, Brennen wrote: "It's hard for Carol and I to ask for help, but we have to. We lost our home in Paradise to the Camp Fire. Carol barely escaped with her life. My childhood home, along with the rest of my hometown, is gone. The only way forward for us is to rebuild our lives. I'm trying to find a house or duplex for rent near Davis. I only recently graduated from UC Davis and we have no savings so we can't afford to secure a new lease. We need $3000-5000 for deposit and first month's rent. I think we can get by under our own power after we have housing, but securing a place is the top priority."
The gofundme address is: https://www.gofundme.com/bandcparadisecampfire
#ParadiseStrong.
#DyerStrong.
We can do this!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"The butterfly counts not months but moments, and has time enough."--Rabindranath Tagore
When we think of orange and autumn, we think of the marriage of the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae), and the Mexican sunflower (Tithonia).
The silver-spangled Gulf Fritillary, a showy orange butterfly, looks like two different species. When it spreads its wings, it's orange. The underwings: silver.
"Dazzling," agrees butterfly guru Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology.
"This dazzling bit of the New World Tropics was introduced into southern California in the 19th Century --we don't know how-- and was first recorded in the Bay Area before 1908, though it seems to have become established there only in the 1950s," he says on his website.
"It can be quite common in the East and South Bay --particularly in Berkeley--and has been found breeding spontaneously as far inland as Fairfield where, however, it is not established. There are scattered records in the Central Valley and even up to Folsom, perhaps resulting from people breeding the species for amusement or to release at social occasions."
The Gulf Frit bred in Sacramento in abundance on Passiflora in the early 1960s, Shapiro relates. "It seems to have died out by the early 1970s, however. Intolerant of hard freezes, it still managed to survive the record cold snap of 1990 that largely exterminated the Buckeye regionally!"
Its host plant: Passiflora or passionflower vine. Plant it and they will come (at least in this area)!
"Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you."--Nathaniel Hawthorne