- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Or "B" is for Biodiversity Museum Day.
You, no doubt, saw the stick insects, Madagascar hissing cockroaches and millipedes. And you may have handled them. Scores of children--and many adults--asked to touch or hold them.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, shared a booth at the Conference Center with the laboratory of Jason Bond, who is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Arthropods from the Bond lab also included a scorpion and a trapdoor spider. The Bohart displayed a number of specimens, including the state insect, the California dogface butterfly, and the Asian giant hornet (nicknamed "murder hornet" by the news media.)
Some 1300 visitors checked out the displays, staffed by scientists from 11 museums or collections on campus:
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- UC Davis Bee Haven
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Department of Anthropology Museum
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Nematode Collection
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
This was the first year the free, science-based event has been held exposition-style in one facility. A special feature: side trips to several of the museums or collections.
Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon periodically escorted tours from the Conference Center to the Bohart Museum located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building. Currently closed to the public due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions, the Bohart houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop (now online).
(Editor's Note: More coverage pending)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
But he's an entomologist with an incredible reach that extends in practically all corners of the insect science world. He's like the equivalent of a griffinfly from the extinct genus Meganeuropsis, a huge insect with a wingspan of 27 inches.
Indeed, the reach of UC Davis distinguished Frank Zalom UC Davis distinguished professor, is quite comparable.
Zalom, a noted integrated pest management (IPM) specialist and a past president of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), is a newly elected Honorary Member of the ESA, an honor bestowed for his “long-term dedication and extraordinary contributions” to the 7000-member global organization. Honorary Member is the highest honor that can be afforded an ESA member.
Zalom, praised as “an entomological giant” and “the consummate ambassador to entomology,” joins five other entomologists as Honorary Members. They will be honored at the ESA's annual meeting, Entomology 2021, set Oct. 31-Nov. 3 in Denver.
“Honorary membership acknowledges those who have served ESA for at least 20 years through significant involvement in the affairs of the society that has reached an extraordinary level,” an ESA spokesperson said. “Candidates for this honor are selected by the ESA Governing Board and then voted on by the ESA membership.”
“Dr. Zalom is phenomenal for his sustained service of leadership, research, teaching and mentoring, and in my opinion, he is one of the world's most influential, accomplished and inspirational entomologists,” wrote nominator James R. Carey, a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology and an ESA Fellow. ESA Honorary Member and ESA Fellow Philip Mulder, emeritus professor and former department chair at Oklahoma State University, noted: “Frank is and was the consummate ambassador to entomology throughout his entire career and around the globe on multiple occasions.”
A 47-year member of ESA, Zalom is an emeritus professor with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and currently a recall professor, continuing his work on IPM of tree, vine and fruiting vegetable crops through several major USDA and CDFA research grants he has received since retiring. Since his retirement, he has brought in more than $1 million in grants. Zalom is also working with Professor Rachael Goodhue, chair of the UC Davis Agricultural and Resource Economics Department on an ongoing pesticide policy research project involving "economic and pest management analyses of potential regulations in strawberry, tomato, and other fruiting crops" in collaboration with CDFA's Office of Pesticide Policy and Analysis.
Zalom directed the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program (UC IPM) for 16 years (1986-2002). “Frank elevated it to 'the gold standard' of the world's IPM programs, emphasizing ecologically based pest management programs for agriculture, urban settings and natural resources,” Carey wrote.
The UC Davis entomologist has authored nearly 400 journal publications or book chapters, and more than 400 other publications. He holds two U.S. patents.
Passionate about moving science policy forward, Zalom served as ESA's Science Policy Committee Chair in 2015. In 2018, he co-organized a two-day summit, Grand Challenges in Entomology in South America, hosted by the Entomological Society of Brazil. The summit focused on invasive species, public health, and sustainable agriculture, and included invited leadership from all entomology societies in Central and South America. Zalom also co-organized the North American and Pacific Rim Invasive Insect and Arthropod Species Challenge Summit, jointly hosted by the entomological societies of America, Canada and British Columbia in Vancouver, BC in 2019.
Highly honored by his peers, Zalom is a Fellow of four scientific organizations: ESA; the American Association for the Advancement of Science, California Academy of Sciences, and Royal Entomological Society. His numerous awards include the BY Morrison Memorial Medal from USDA-ARS and American Society for Horticultural Science (2017), ESA's Recognition Award (2002), Outstanding Achievement Award in Extension Entomology (1992), Excellence in IPM Award (2010), IPM Team Award (2008), and the Pacific Branch Woodworth Award (2011).
Among his UC Davis recognitions are the Consortium for Women in Research Outstanding Mentor Award (2013), James H. Meyer Award (2004), and Academic Senate Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award (2017).
A native of Chicago, Frank moved to Arizona with his family at age 4. He received his bachelor's degree and master's degrees in zoology and ecology from Arizona State University, 1973 and 1974, respectively, and his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1978. He joined the University of Minnesota faculty as assistant professor before returning to UC Davis in 1980.
“Throughout his career the depth of his knowledge in IPM was matched by the strength of his commitment to teaching students and postdocs, as well as by the power of his dedication to helping growers in all areas of agricultural entomology,” Carey wrote. “A former Fulbright Scholar, Frank is both a visionary and dedicated entomologist who has devoted his life's work to advancing entomology and ESA programs. His expertise is in great demand from colleagues, agriculturists, policy makers, students and more. He is the consummate entomologist, intricately skilled and highly accomplished.”
Zalom is the fifth UC Davis scientist to be selected ESA Honorary Member. W. Harry Lange (1912-2004) received the award in 1990; Donald MacLean (1928-2014), the 1984 ESA president, won the award in 1993; Bruce Eldridge in 1996, and John Edman in 2001.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So began noted neuroscientist John Hildebrand in his keynote speech heralding the opening of the first-of-its kind international olfaction/taste symposium. Hildebrand is the Honors Professor and Regents Professor at the University of Arizona and the International Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences.
UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal coordinated and co-hosted the Zoom symposium, titled “Insect Olfaction and Taste in 24 Hours Around the Globe.” The free event drew attendees from 66 countries.
The presentations, which began at 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), Wednesday, Aug. 11, were uploaded to YouTube. All ten videos from the symposium are now online:
- Video One is at https://youtu.be/QlyNCZtSvtY
- Video Two is at https://youtu.be/-aO8-1yfQRI
- Video Three is at https://youtu.be/2SsQvYlXKXY
- Video Four is at https://youtu.be/hmmEac7MliI
- Video Five is at https://youtu.be/60D99Z6nJI8
- Video Six is at https://youtu.be/rZ7i4d7VogQ
- Video Seven is at https://youtu.be/19ukK_R7eKE
- Video Eight is at youtu.be/eROTKZFhu9w
- Video Nine is at https://youtu.be/uVrESHyAyvU
- Video Ten is at https://youtu.be/-XUuKGYbByc
"As an undergraduate student, I started in research working on bacteria in the laboratory of the biochemist John Law," he related. "At that time he was beginning to redirect his research to problems in insect biochemistry and among other projects; he was collaborating with the biologist E. O. Wilson in studies of ant pheromones. The term pheromone had been invented only three years earlier in 1959 in Germany by Peter Carlson and Martin Luther, and in that same year another German out of Bhutan and his group had reported the first chemical identification of an insect pheromone."
That was the silk moth pheromone, Bombykol, released by the female silkworm moth (Bombyx mori) to attract mates.
The rest, they say, is history. Insect history.
The symposium included 15 invited (keynote) and 36 contribution presentations,” said Leal, a UC Davis distinguished professor with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). Leal hosted the PDT segment. Wynand van der Goes van Naters of Cardiff University, UK, hosted the British Summer Time (BST) segment; and Coral Warr of La Trobe University, Australia hosted the Australia Eastern Standard Time (AEST) segment.
The presentations covered a wide variety of insects, including three species of mosquitoes (Culex, Aedes and Anopheles); honey bee (Apis mellifera); fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila sechellia, and Drosophila suzukii); sand flies (the blood-sucking dipteran flies); cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera); housefly (Musca domestica); cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae); and the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana).
Some statistics:
- Total users (including those logging in periodically): 2,990
- 71 percent of the attendees surveyed said they were "very satisfied" with the symposium, and 12 percent "satisfied."
- 54 percent of the surveyed attendees had never attended a conference on chemosensation.
"One of the highlights of the symposium was the participation of students and postdocs who showcased their work and announced at the end, that they will be looking for a position," Leal said. "Other professors, at the end of their talks, advertised vacancies in their lab. I had asked all presenters to share some new data. In fact, many presenters showed unpublished data, while others showed data that they had already submitted to BioRxiv, a non-peer reviewed pre-print server."
At the closing, Leal selected two persons to give their impressions of the symposium:
- See opinion by Greg Pask, an assistant professor of biology at Middlebury College, Vermont: https://twitter.com/wsleal2014/status/1427040189147275271.
- See comments by Nathalia Brito, who just completed her Ph.D. at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro: https://twitter.com/wsleal2014/status/1427431406527934490
- "I used to work in the field of insect taste and olfaction and have attended a couple of ESITO meetings (European Symposium for Insect Taste and Olfaction) when I was a grad student and in early days as a postdoc. This was a wonderful opportunity to see that latest advances in the field and see many of the people whom I had met in person talk and some new people."
- "Thank you to the organizers for coordinating such an informative and well run virtual event."
- "Great collegial and convivial atmosphere. Really good idea to have a commentary on the lectures."
- "I am working on bark beetle olfaction, so I am available in the future with this topic. Thank you."
- "I learnt a lot from different groups especially disease vectors. It was a privilege to listen to some of the big names in this area. Looking forward to a future meeting."
- "I would like say the heartiest thanks to everyone who worked on this webinar. I am doing research for more than 10 years and I never experienced such a wonderful scientific event. What you have done can not be appreciated by words."
- "Undoubtedly, this is the best symposium I have ever attended to. I was able to join with almost every presentation. As an early-career researcher in chemical ecology, this inspired me a lot. Hope to present in this meeting and getting to know great scientists in the future. Hats off to the organisers. Thank you."
- "Thank you for organizing! I only wish there were more detailed times for each presentation so I could be sure to tune in for specific talks, but this is a great concept!"
The detailed schedule of times and speakers was purposely not announced in advance "in order to keep attendance high when students, postdocs, and early-career scholars presented," Leal said, adding "I enjoyed listening to the student/early-career researchers talks. All of them were very interesting and well executed."
For more information and updates, follow Walter Leal on Twitter at @wsleal2014 or access his biochemistry channel where all the videos will be posted. Folks can also turn on YouTube and Chrome browser notifications to receive alerts.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
As director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology (which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year), Kimsey identifies about 2000 insect specimens a year for colleagues, students, the museum and other museums. The Bohart curates some 30,000 new specimens to the museum annually.
A UC Davis alumnus (bachelor's degree and doctorate), Kimsey joined the entomology faculty in 1989. Since 1990, she has administered the Bohart Museum, which now houses some eight million insect specimens and is the seventh largest university insect museum in North America.
Her areas of expertise? Insect biodiversity, systematics and biogeography of parasitic wasps, urban entomology, civil forensic entomology, and arthropod-related industrial hygiene. She has served in numerous leadership roles at the international, national and local level, including two terms as president of the International Hymenopterists, board member of the Natural Science Collections Alliance, and interim chair and vice chair (twice) of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology).
Last year her peers selected her for the 2020 C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor given by the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America.
Take her page on Urban Myths on the Bohart Museum website where she dispels bizarre myths with a succinct dose of humor.
Such as the urban myth, "Female mantids always eat males they mate with." Her response: "Only if the male isn't fast enough!"
Urban myth: "Camel spiders scream like babies, inject toxins and prey on GI's in Iraq."
Kimsey reality: "Not true at any level."
Urban myth: "Twenty-five percent of the protein in our diet is from swallowing spiders that crawl in our mouth at night."
Kimsey reality: "This never happens."
Urban myth: "Love bugs that plague the southeastern U.S. are the result of government experiments."
Kimsey reality: "No, Mother Nature came up with those beauties."
Urban myth: "Ultrasonic devices help keep pests out of your kitchen."
Kimsey reality: "False, few insects can hear, certainly not cockroaches."
Urban myth: "Earwigs will crawl in your ear and lay eggs in your brain."
Kimsey reality: "They sometimes do crawl in ears by accident, but do not lay eggs."
Urban myth: "Bedbugs bore, burrow, dig and fly."
Kimsey reality: "No, they can only walk or scurry."
Urban myth: "Butterflies and moths can't fly if you rub the scales off their wings."
Kimsey reality: "Not true, they can fly."
The Bohart director also fields questions about spiders, including the urban myth that brown recluse spiders are "common in California." No, she says, "they are not found anywhere near California."
No doubt that Kimsey, known as "The Wasp Woman" for her expertise in Hymenoptera, soon will be targeting myths about those Asian giant hornets, aka "murder hornets," that are supposedly mass-targeting 328 million people in the United States.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
“You're never too far away from a spider; a spider is always watching you," said Bond, who is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "They are always there. There are lots of them on the planet. They're absolutely everywhere."
Yes, spiders are everywhere and there's even a spider-themed pencil case to be available soon in the Bohart Museum's online gift shop. Dozens of insect- and spider-themed gifts are already available, proceeds of which benefit the scientific and educational activities of the Bohart Museum.
The Bohart, home of a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens, houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of the state's deserts, mountains, coast, and the Great Central Valley. It maintains one of the world's largest collections of tardigrades. (See Bug Squad blog.)
It also provides a live "petting zoo," comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas (in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus), but you can't see them now because of the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.
The Bohart masks both feature the California state insect, the dogface butterfly. "There is a white one with the stylized, yellow dogface logo and then a dark blue with a logo in golden yellow (UC Davis colors)," Professor Keller said. The pencil cases also will be arriving soon, she added.
Said Professor Kimsey: “Your support enables us to fulfill our mission of documenting and supporting research in biodiversity, educating and inspiring others about insects, and providing state-of-the-art information to the community."
The Bohart officials have compiled gift ideas for all ages:
- Bohart t-shirts starting at size 2T
- Stuffed animals (the arthropod kind)
- Tardigrade backpack clip toy
- Toys from Insect Lore
- Books
- Stickers
- Insect net
- Edible insect snacks and candy
Gift ideas for tweens/teens:
- Hoodie with the California flag re-envisioned with a "water bear" (Tardigrade)
- Bohart T-shirts
- Beetle wing earrings
- Temporary tattoos
- Bohart sticker for water bottle/lap top/bike
- Collecting equipment
- Information on Bio Boot Camps, our summer camps for middle and high schoolers
Gift ideas for teachers:
- Mug with CA state insect
- Clever, instructional sticker for in-class spider removal
- Insect Lore models of life cycles
- Posters of California insects (dragonflies, State insects, Central Valley butterflies)
- Bohart book : The Story of the Dogface Butterfly (includes life cycle info and a civic-minded 4th grade class!)
- A one-hour, in-class insect presentation or an educational material loan (contact tabyang@ucdavis.edu to inquire about this- some restrictions may apply)
Gift ideas for adults:
- Membership
- Hand-turned, lathed pens
- Jewelry
- Books (used and new)
- Note cards
- A net to catch insects
- Clever, instructional sticker for in-home spider removal
Gift ideas for college students:
- Hoodie with the California flag re-envisioned with a "water bear" (Tardigrade)
- Bohart sticker for water bottle/lap top/bike
- Insect collecting equipment
- Jewelry (everything from $1 to $36)
Folks can also donate to the effort of raising funds to purchase a large tardigarde (waterbear) sculpture in front of the museum. "This sculpture will advance the museum's educational role and will increase the museum's visibility," Kimsey said. See https://uk.gofundme.com/f/waterbear-sculpture.
For more information, email the Bohart Museum at bmuseum@ucdavis.edu or access the website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu.