- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Enter researcher Paulo Vieira, a plant pathologist, molecular biologist and nematologist with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Beltsville, MD.
He will speak on "Beech Leaf Disease: An Emergent Threat to Beech Forest Ecosystems in North America" at a virtual seminar hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, announced host and nematologist Shahid Siddique. It is set for 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, May 17. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"The beech leaf disease nematode, Litylenchus crenatae mccannii, is recognized as a newly emergent nematode species that causes beech leaf disease (BLD) in beech trees (Fagus spp.) in North America," Vieira says in his abstract. "Since the first report of BLD on Fagus grandifolia in Ohio in 2012, the disease has rapidly spread to other states and Canada. This nematode has been so far reported in Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, New Jersey, West Virginia, and Virginia, as well as Ontario. Leaf symptoms include swelling and darkening of interveinal tissues as well as chlorosis, while tissue necrosis and leaf curling occur at later stages of the disease. As a result, mortality of nematode infected understory beech trees has been reported after several years of infection in the United States. The fast dissemination of this nematode can impose a dramatic effect on beech forest ecosystems and natural diversity in North America."
Vieira says that "Little information on the molecular and cellular interaction between this nematode and its hosts is available. To advance our understanding into this unknown host- nematode system, we investigated the cytological aspects of this interaction using bright-field and scanning electron microscopy. Our data reveal that these nematodes can induce morphological changes in both bud and leaf tissues, which so far seem unique in the Nematoda phylum. These cellular changes ultimately provide the necessary nutrients for completion of the nematode life cycle, while dramatically affecting bud and leaf morphology. In addition, we used Illumina mRNA sequence analysis of a mixed stage population to obtain insight into the transcriptome of this nematode. Gene comparative analyses were combined to select a list of candidate effector/parasitism genes. Spatial expression of transcripts within the esophageal glands of L. crenatae mccannii by in situ hybridization validated a list of pioneer effectors novel to this species and across the Nematoda phylum. These analyses provide additional data for understanding the mode of parasitism of this newly emergent plant-parasitic nematode."
Vieira, who joined USDA-ARS in November 2021, holds a master's degree (2007) in plant pathology, phytopathoogy from the University of Évora, Portugal, and a doctorate (2012 in plant pathology, plant-nematode interaction from the University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis and Institute Sophia Agrobiotech, France. His resume includes postdoctoral researcher at the University of Évora (2012-2013) and USDA (2013-2015). Vieira served as a researcher in molecular biology at Virginia Tech for eight years before joining USDA-ARS in Beltsville.
Vieira's current research interests:
- Identification and functional analyses of effectors of plant-parasitic nematodes
- Genomics and transcriptomics of plant-parasitic nematodes, with a particular focus on migratory nematodes
- Plant-nematode interaction studies using cell and molecular biology approaches
Department seminar coordinator is urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor. For technical issues regarding Zoom connections, she may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu. (See complete list of spring seminars.)
Related Resources:
First report of the beech leaf disease nematode Litylenchus crenatae mccannii (Nematoda: Anguinidae) in Michigan (Plant Disease journal, Nov. 22, 2022)
Paulo Vieria: Google scholar and Twitter accounts
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So here's this crab spider stalking a katydid nymph foraging on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia rotundifola.
Dinner awaits!
Suddenly a native bee, Melissodes agilis, lands next to the katydid and begins to sip some nectar.
Decisions, decisions! Do I want a juice katydid nymph or a tasty long-horned bee? Do I have a choice in the matter or does it matter if I have a choice?
A moment in time. Time in a moment. The bee, unaware of danger, continues to forage. Then, abruptly, the bee takes flight.
One menu choice remains.
It was a good day for the crab spider.
It was not a good day for the katydid.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That's what UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro called out when he spotted a pipevine swallowtail foraging on wild radish as we trudged up Gates Canyon Road several years ago.
It's a beautiful butterfly, and one of the first we see in the spring. It's also called a "blue swallowtail," in reference to its iridescent-blue hindwings.
Our first sighting this year occurred April 30 in the Ecological Garden of the UC Davis Student Farm. We photographed the butterfly foraging on Jupiter's Beard, Centranthus ruber.
"The signature riparian butterfly of our region, occurring along streams in foothill canyons and on the Central Valley floor, essentially everywhere where its only host plant, California Pipevine or Dutchman's Pipe, Aristolochia californica, occurs," Shapiro writes on his website, Art's Butterfly World.
"It is unmistakable and very conspicuous as both a larva and an adult. Only the pupa is cryptic (either brown or green, with a delicate golden filigree)."
Shapiro, a UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology faculty member who has been monitoring butterfly populations of Central California since 1972, says that "this species is warningly colored and inedible to vertebrate predators. It derives its protection from the toxic aristolochic acids produced by the host, which it sequesters; females even pass these along to the eggs, which are also protected (and are brick red, laid in bunches of up to 20, and quite conspicuous). Eggs are laid only on young, tender, growing shoot tips and the larvae must begin by feeding on these. Initially they feed in groups. As they get larger they scatter and can tackle large, mature leaves. But because these react to feeding damage by becoming more toxic and unpalatable, a larva will feed on a single leaf only for a short time and then has to move on. Eventually most or all leaves end up damaged, but few are badly damaged. The larvae also feed eagerly on the immature fruits, which look like small bananas with fluted edges. In big swallowtail years little if any seed ends up being set."
The butterfly "flies from late winter (February-March) to autumn (October, occasionally November) but is much more numerous before the 4th of July than later; typically it has two large flights followed by stragglers the rest of the season, often with a 'blip' upward in August. Usually the host plant stops growing in June, and thereafter there are no sites suitable for egg-laying--unless there is a local catastrophe (usually fire, though weed-whacking will do). Then the plants regenerate rapidly, producing new growth in the off-season, and any females around at the time quickly find and make use of the new shoots. Adults routinely live a month or so."
Shapiro also says that adults "are eager visitors to many flowers, including wild radish, California buckeye, blue dicks, Ithuriel's Spear, and Yerba Santa. In summer they regularly nectar at yellow starthistle when there are no native plants in bloom."
We remember admiring dozens of pipevine swallowtails in the nine-acre Hallberg Butterfy Gardens, a wildlife sanctuary in Sebastopol, West Sonoma County, and visiting with Louise Hallberg (1917-2017)). She kept meticulous records and thoroughly enjoyed showing visitors around. We posted a Bug Squad blog about her and her garden in 2015 and captured an image of her on her front porch.
How did this butterfly get its name, Battus philenor? According to Wikipedia, Battus refers to the founder of the Greek colony of Cyrenaica, Battus I, and philenor is derived from the Greek word meaning "fond of husband."
Who knew?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
No?
Well, a newly described bacteria species now carries the last name of a husband-wife team: Lynn and Robert "Bob" Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Bob, a forensic entomologist, and Lynn, a hymenopterist and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, recently welcomed a joint namesake: Chryseobacterium kimseyorum.
It's a species found more than a decade ago inside the gut of a stick insect housed in the Bohart Museum of Entomology petting zoo.
“We've had a few things named after us but never bacteria--that's a first,” Lynn related.
Our story begins more than a decade ago when then UC Davis doctoral student Matan Shelomi, now an associate professor of entomology at National Taiwan University, Taiwan, was studying the digestive physiology of the stick and leaf insects, Phasmatodea, for his Ph.D, pursued under the guidance of his major professor, Lynn Kimsey. He isolated and cultured bacteria from the guts and cages of the stick insects. Some of the species seemed new to science, but Shelomi had neither the time nor the resources to prove it then.
He stored the microbes inside the deep freezers of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology.
"Thankfully, I kept all my notes from graduate school," said Shelomi, "so I was able to check and see which strains I had flagged as possibly new species. When I saw one of them was the same genus as the new microbe found in Taiwan, I realized this was an opportunity to describe them both together." So Shelomi emailed Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Collection, “who had my old specimen revived and shipped across the Pacific.”
Analysis confirmed two new species. The result: A research article published April 19 in the International Journal of Systemic and Evolutionary Microbiology. The title:“Chryseobacterium oryctis sp. nov., Isolated from the Gut of the Beetle Oryctes rhinoceros, and Chryseobacterium kimseyorum sp. nov., Isolated from a Stick Insect Rearing Cage.”
Han named his species after the beetle he found it in. Shelomi named his species (which he found in Eurycantha calcarata, commonly known as the "Giant New Guinea Stick Insect” or “Thorny Devil Stick”) after his former bosses. The suffix -orum in kimseyorum indicates that the name honors both Kimseys. “Officially one cannot name a microbe after more than one person, but there is precedent, so the (journal) editors allowed it. My grad student wanted to name her microbe after her dog, BaBa, but the editors did not allow that. Spoil-sports!”
Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum, relayed the news to a tour group visiting the insect museum on April 20. “I just used this story today with a tour group,” she told Shelomi. “I mentioned how your student was denied her dog's name. I love how this ties the Bohart and the Phaff Yeast collection together and then California and Taiwan.”
As for the stick insect, “It's pretty aggressive for a walking stick,” Lynn Kimsey said, noting that Andy Engilis, curator of the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, told her about his work in Papua New Guinea. “These walking sticks would actually chase rodents out of their burrows and take over the burrows to rest in,” she related. “That's pretty tough for a walking stick.”
Meanwhile, the Kimseys are enjoying their new namesake. LynnKimsey already has seven other species named for her:
- Mystacagenia kimseyae Cambra & Wasbauer 2020 (spider wasp)
- Oligoaster kimseyae Soliman 2013 (tiphiid wasp)
- Exaerate kimseyae Oliviera 2011 (orchid bee)
- Spilomena kimseyae Antropov 1993 (solitary wasp)
- Manaos kimseyae Smith (argid sawfly)
- Spintharina kimseyae Bohart 1987 (cuckoo wasp)
- Neodryinus kimseyae Olmi 1987 (dryinid wasp)
Bob Kimsey has as at least two species named for him: Acordulacera kimseyi Smith, 2010 (sawfly) and Grandiella kimseyi Summers & Schuster (mite).
Shelomi, a Harvard University graduate who received his doctorate from UC Davis in 2014, served as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany for two years before accepting a faculty position in 2017 at National Taiwan University.
Shelomi returned to UC Davis in 2017 to present a seminar on "Revelations from Phasmatodea Digestive Track Transcriptomics,” to the department.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That's the theme of the 146th annual Dixon May Fair, the 36th District Agricultural Association.
It's been a long, cold winter and we're ready for that! So are the exhibitors and fairgoers.
When the fair opens Thursday, May 11 and continues through Sunday, May 14 at 655 S. First St., Dixon, you'll see bees, butterflies and blossoms--and much more--exhibited in Today's Youth Building (Denverton Hall) and in the Floriculture Building.
Denverton Hall superintendent Bernadette "Bernie" Jacquot of Gridley, former exhibits supervisor at the Butte County Fair, has served more than 30 years in the fair industry.
A few of the insect-related exhibits in the Today's Youth Showcase (since this is a Bug Squad blog):
- A crocheted bumble bee, the work of Faith Ford, 14, of Vacaville
- A wall hanging of a butterfly by Elizabeth Martinez, 14, of Elk Grove
- A photo of a lady beetle, aka ladybug, by Isabelle Johnson-Lopez, 11, of Fairfield
- Butterfly art hanging (diamond art) by Regan Van Tuyl, 13 of Dixon
- A photo of a butterfly titled "Painted Wings" by Regan VanTuyl, 13 of Dixon (identified by UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro as the ventral side of a Sara Orange-Tip (See https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/butterfly/anthocharis/sara-sara)
- A "bee happy" tote bag, the work of Jessie Means, 15, of Vacaville
On one wall, Connelly has created what looks like a Matilija poppy plant, complete with a six-sectioned white ceramic platter for the petals, centered with a cluster of yellow ribbons. In another area, her honey bee with widespread yellow wings is heading for a purple flower, already occupied by a golden bee.
Key information about the fair:
Thursday, May 11: 4 to 10 p.m. (Ticket sales and buildings close at 9 p.m.) No re-entry after 9 p.m.
Friday, May 12: Noon to 11 p.m. (Ticket sales and buildings close at 10 p.m.) No re-entry after 10 p.m.
Saturday, May 13: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. (Ticket sales and buildings close at 10 p.m.) No re-entry after 10 p.m.
Sunday, May 14: Noon to 10 p.m. (Ticket sales and buildings close at 9 p.m.) No re-entry after 9 p.m.
SPECIAL DAYS
THRIFTY THURSDAY, May 11: $5 admission for everyone 5 years of age and older
KIDS' DAY FRIDAY, May 12: Children 12 and under free fair admission all day
GATE PRICES
Adult 13 and Over: $15
Children 5 to 12 years of age: $10
Children 4 & Under: Free fair admission
Senior Citizen Discount: 65 and over, $10
Military Discount, with an active duty card, $10
Parking: $5 per vehicle
Access the fair website for information on musical entertainment, special shows, and rules. The Dixon Fair May chief executive officer is Patricia "Pat" Conklin, a veteran fair manager with 40-plus years of management experience in the fair industry (deputy CEO of the Solano County Fair, CEO of Butte County Fair, CEO of Sonoma-Marin Fairs and then CEO of the Dixon May Fair, beginning in 2012.) She was inducted into the Western Fairs' Association Hall of Fame in 2022.
Pat grew up in Dixon and, as a member of both the 4-H and FFA programs, showed livestock in the same fair that she manages today.
