Talk about alliteration.

"Bugs from Belize in the Bohart."

It doesn't get any more bugly than that.

That would be the exhibit at the Bohart Museum of Entomology. It's part of the seventh annual Biodiversity Museum Day, an all-day event set from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 17 and showcasing 13 museums or collections. And yes, it's all free and open to the public.

• The following will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology; Bohart Museum of Entomology, Raptor Center, Paleontology Collection, Arboretum and Public Garden; Phaff Yeast Culture Collection; and the Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection.
• The following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.: Nematode Collection, Botanical Conservatory, Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium, Anthroplogy Museum, Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, and the Design Museum

But back to the bugs from Belize in the Bohart.

Bohart associates Fran Keller and Dave Wyatt led an expedition there in January--one of many collection trips they've organized--and they'll be at the Bohart from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. to display the specimens and answer your questions. Among those participating on the collection trip were Jeff Smith, who curates the butterfly-moth collection at the Bohart; Darian Dungey, a 2017 UC Davis graduate in entomology; and Noah Crockette of Davis, a Sacramento City College student studying entomology.

Wyatt is a biology professor at Sacramento City College, where he teaches courses in the feild ecology programs. "I am a wildlife biologist with research interests in mammalogy and entomology and I specialize in working with ringtails (a relative of raccoons, coatis, and kinkajous) and bats," he says. "One of my favorite places to travel to is Belize in Central America - I have been fortunate to be able to go to Belize numerous times during the last decade."

Keller is an entomologist who teaches biology classes at Folsom Lake College. She holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, where she studied with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum. As a child, Fran was fascinated with insects and spent hours collecting them and observing them. Fascinated? She still is!

They estimated they brought back 100,000 specimens from their first Bohart Bioblitz Collecting Trip in June 2016. They co-taught a course at Sonoma State for the first two weeks in June and the collecting trip followed.

"Our very first collecting trip to start the National Collection was in June 2014," Keller related. "We then went in June 2015, June 2016, August 2017 and January 2018. The June 2016 and August 2017 were official Bohart Bioblitz Collecting trips (no course attached) with entomologists and insect-loving students helping collect insects for the Belize National Insect Collection, which is currently housed at the Bohart Museum."

The Bohart Museum is the home of eight million insect specimens, collected globally.  On Saturday, you'll see scores of specimens, plus the live "petting zoo" of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks, rose-haired tarantulas, and praying mantises. UC Davis entomology student Lohit Garikipati will display his praying mantises, which include an orchid mantis and an Australian rainforest mantis. 

Be sure to check out all the collections and exhibits during Biodiversity Museum Day. The only dilemna is: "What should we see first?" You can download a map on the Biodiversity Museum Day website. All the collections are within walking distance except for the Raptor Center on Old Davis Road and the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee garden, on Bee Biology Road.

It's all about exploring the diversity of life--from hawks to honey bees, and from dinosaur bones to butterflies. And bugs from Belize at the Bohart.

Professor Neal Williams of UC Davis was part of the research team. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

They set out to answer the question: "How many wild bee species do we need to pollinate our crops?"

The answer: "Not nearly enough bees are available for crop pollination."

Check out the biodiversity-crop pollination research published today in the journal Science by a team of ecologists led by Rachael Winfree of Rutgers University, New Brunswick, and including Neal Williams of the University of California, Davis.

The abstract:
"Ecologists have shown through hundreds of experiments that ecological communities with more species produce higher levels of essential ecosystem functions such as biomass production, nutrient cycling, and pollination, but whether this finding holds in nature (that is, in large-scale and unmanipulated systems) is controversial. This knowledge gap is troubling because ecosystem services have been widely adopted as a justification for global biodiversity conservation. Here we show that, to provide crop pollination in natural systems, the number of bee species must increase by at least one order of magnitude compared with that in field experiments. This increase is driven by species turnover and its interaction with functional dominance, mechanisms that emerge only at large scales. Our results show that maintaining ecosystem services in nature requires many species, including relatively rare ones."

What they did what to research the number of wild bees found in watermelon, blueberry and cranberry crops on 48 farms in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

By the numbers:

• more than 100 wild bee species identified
• 3 crops
• 48 farms
• 2 states
• 6 researchers

“We found that maintaining ecosystem services in nature requires many species, including relatively rare ones,” said Professor Winfree. The publication, “Species Turnover Promotes the Importance of Bee Diversity for Crop Pollination at Regional Scales,” appears in the section, Ecology.

For the research, the team counted pollen grains of different bee species to measure bee pollination, tallied the number of bees and the different species pollinating the crops, and then figured out the minimum set of bee species that could meet various pollination needs. Finally, they plotted the cumulative number of bee species needed against the number of sites.

"When you have five (ish) bee species you get enough pollination,” she said “But there are only so many species you can even fit in an experiment. What we wanted to know is, how many bees do real farmers need to pollinate actual farms across an entire state?” 

“Any one farm might need only a few species, but different bee species pollinate the different farms, so to pollinate all 50 (ish) farms we needed about 10 times as many species as are needed in smaller scale experiments,” Winfree said. “More than half of the 100 (ish) bee species we saw in the study were needed at some farm for some crop.”

Winfree, reiterating that “we need more bees than we thought,” said the issue is “important because many scientists are concerned that bees are in trouble. There is limited information on how most bee species are doing, but some of the species we do know about are declining. This work shows that preserving lots of bee species is important for food security.”

Said Williams, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology: “Bees and other pollinators are critical for the pollination of crops and wild plants around the world and protecting them has become a major concern. A considerable amount of past research has shown that having multiple species improves pollination of many crops; that is pollinator biodiversity benefits crop pollination in many cases.”  

“So how many species do we need to ensure reliable crop pollination?” Williams asked. “The answer to this question helps us manage our agricultural and natural lands.  Past studies suggest that often just a few bee species can do the job for any one site.”

The study, among the first of its kind, “reveals that when we look across multiple farm sites in a region, we need many more species than experimental studies have suggested in the past,” Williams said.

“At one farm pollination might rely on a handful of species, but across 40-50 farms in a region we need 10 times that number,” he noted. “This is because the most important species change from one place to another. “

So how many bee species are important to ensure crop pollination?  

“More than we thought!” Williams said. “Working to promote bee diversity across regions is important for maintaining pollination and secure food systems.” 

How can this apply to California? Williams said that "similar patterns likely apply in California, where we have shown benefits of wild bee diversity for watermelon, sunflower and almond pollination. That said, our landscapes differ and we ought to be considering it here in California, too."

What's the next step? "In practice, continuing to think about and approach pollinator diversity and pollinator health as a regional undertaking as well as at single sites," Williams said.

Other co-authors of the study are James Reilly of Rutgers; Ignasi Bartomeus of Rutgers and also with a biological station in Seville, Spain; Daniel Cariveau of Rutgers and the University of Minnesota; and Jason Gibbs of the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.

A grant from the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded the data collection research. Winfree conceived the study, oversaw the data collection, led the conceptual development and wrote the manuscript. Williams contributed to the conceptual development and manuscript preparation.

It's bugged. Yes, it is.

When you attend the seventh annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 17 to see 13 museums or collections, be sure to see It's Bugged: Insects' Role in Design, an exhibit in Cruess Hall that explores the connection between insects and people.

Or connects insects and people.

The display will be open from noon to 4 p.m., especially for Biodiversity Museum Day. (Note that the Design Museum exhibit is not open on Saturdays, but this Saturday it is. The event opened Jan. 8 and hours are from noon to 4 p.m. and on Sundays from 2 to 4 p.m,  through April 22. Admission is free.)

"Bugged" features the work of Department of Design faculty and graduate students, as well as displays from the Bohart Museum of Entomology and insect photos by UC Davis Ph.D alum Alex Wild, now curator of entomology at the University of Texas, Austin.

Key attractions include the amazing work of professor emerita Ann Savageau of the Department of Design. For the exhibition, Savageau created a trilogy of wall pieces made from hornet nest paper, and a set of sculptures made of wood etched into striking patterns by bark beetle larvae.

The exhibition explores the two sides of the relationship between people and insects, Savageau told the crowd at the opening reception. “The first side shows how makers, designers, architects, and artists draw upon nature's patterns to create beautiful and useful materials and structures. The second side examines the collaboration of humans and insects as producers of raw materials, such as harvested silk and red dye made from cochineal. This human-insect relationship is complex and compelling.”

 “Insects have played a significant role in human cultures across the globe for millennia," Savageau related. "They have been revered as sacred, they have been used as food, dye, and ornament. They have been inspiration for human architecture, design and art. And some insect products, namely silk and cochineal, have been big players in global trade networks, economies, and conflicts.”

“But today, insect populations are disappearing at an alarming rate, and the implications for the health of our planet are staggering. Just look at the crash of honey bee populations in the US, and its implications for so many of our crops.”

In her talk, Savageau described the bald-faced hornet,  Dolichovespula maculata, "as an animal dear to my heart, because I use the paper from its nest to create artworks. This hornet creates large paper nests that have dozens of layers of paper with air pockets in between. Inside are multiple layers of brood combs where the queen lays hundreds of eggs. The larvae are fed chewed insects by the workers."

The retired professor and now full-time artist works with the patterns etched by bark beetle larvae under the bark of various trees, including pine and fir. "Each pattern serves a specific function for the beetles and their larvae," she said. For her piece titled  "Totems," she applied metallic paints to fill in either the beetle galleries or the top layer of wood. She collected the work of six different bark beetle species, each one with a distinctive pattern.

Exhibition curator Adrienne McGraw says of "It's Bugged": “The inspiration we draw from the natural world is endless. The challenge in the exhibit was focusing our story to the links between insects and textiles and forms. We selected key pieces from UC Davis' Joann C. Stabb Design Collection and works from collaborating artists, so the connection to insects could then be explored. Some of these relationships are centuries old, while other ways people are using insects and insect behavior is relatively new. What's exciting to me is to think about all the new products, designs, and technologies that are still to come as people continue to be inspired by insects. And what better place to encourage that than a university setting where so much creative work is already going on?”

Biodiversity Museum Day is free and open to the public. The following will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology; Bohart Museum of Entomology, Raptor Center, Paleontology Collection, Arboretum and Public Garden; Phaff Yeast Culture Collection; and the Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection.

The following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.: Nematode Collection, Botanical Conservatory, Center for Plant Diversity Herbarium, Anthropology Museum, Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, and the Design Museum.

You can download maps at http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu. Capsule information is here. 

Have you ever said "Hi" to a watermelon?

No? Well, you can "meet and greet" a watermelon at the Bohart Museum of Entomology during the seventh annual campuswide Biodiversity Museum Day on Saturday, Feb. 17 at the University of California, Davis.

But you can't thump it.

It's a praying mantis nicknamed "Watermelon," so named because of its red and green coloration.

The adult female Australian rainforest mantis, Hierodula majuscola, is part of the collection of  UC Davis entomology student/Bohart Museum associate Lohit Garikipati.

Garikipati will be showing Watermelon and numerous others from his collection--including an orchid mantis named Marsha--from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane.

"Watermelon  is actually on the smaller size of her species--wild individuals are more around the 4-5 inch mark, whereas watermelon just passes 3 inches," says Garikipati, who serves as secretary of the UC Davis Entomology Club and is an active member of the Facebook page, Mantis Keepers. "They are incredibly aggressive, both males and females, and females will even regularly eat Extatosoma tiaratum (Australian leaf insects) when they come across them."

The Australian rainforest mantises are not only known for their large size and aggressive nature, but "they are very pretty, with black and red on their inner forearms--which they flash in defense when they are threatened,  Garikipati points out. "So far Watermelon has laid two egg cases, "but this species can lay around four, with each ootheca hatching 150 plus nymphs."

Garikipati presented a detailed seminar on mantises last Friday to fellow scientists at the Bohart Museum during their regular lab meeting.

Also at the Bohart Museum on Feb. 17, you can see the butterfly and moth collection, curated by entomologist Jeff Smith; and newly collected specimens from a January field trip to Belize headed by Bohart associate and entomologist Fran Keller, assistant professor at Folsom Lake College; wildlife biologist Dave Wyatt, professor at Sacramento City College;  and others on the field trip. No stranger to the Bohart, Keller received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, studying with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart.

The Bohart Museum is just one of 13 museums or collections to be showcased during the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day. The event is free and open to the public.

The following will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.:

• Arboretum and Public Garden, Good Life Garden, next to the Robert Mondavi Wine and Food Science Institute, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• California Raptor Center, 340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road
• Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane
• Paleontology Collection, Earth and Physical Sciences Building, 434 LaRue Road
• Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus
• Viticulture and Enology Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute of Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road, on campus

 The following will be open from noon to 4 p.m.:

• Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds
• Design Museum, 124 Cruess Hall, off California Avenue
• Botanical Conservatory, Greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive
• Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive
• Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, Bee Biology Road, off Hopkins Road (take West Hutchison Drive to Hopkins)
• Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building, off Kleiber Hall Drive

All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, said Biodiversity Museum Day committee chair Tabatha Yang, the Bohart's education and outreach coordinator. The collections are not always accessible to the public. Maps, signs and guides will be available at all the collections, online, and on social media, including Facebook and Twitter, @BioDivDay.