- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Art made of fungus?
Tales about insects?
That will all take place at “Organism,” an art show fusing art, science and technology, including insect art by young entomologists on the University of California, Davis campus
The date: Tuesday night, Dec. 11.
The time: 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
The place: the Old Nelson Gallery in the UC Davis Art Building.
The event, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.
"Organism" also will include visual, sound, live performance, and a look at a Cabinet of Natural Curiosities (see example on Wikipedia).
“This is a two-part show,” said curator Anna Davidson, a doctoral candidate who teaches for the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, which was launched in 2006 by entomologist Diane Ullman and self-described “rock artist” Donna Billick.
Part One will spotlight artworks created by both artists and scientists on the UC Davis campus. Participating scientists will include Ciera Martinez, Anna Davidson, Brad Townsly, Dan Chitwood and Diane Ullman. Among the artists: Daniel Brickman, May Wilson, Evan Clayburg, Daniel Mendoza, Sarah Julig, Dylan Wright, Donna Billick and Emily Schleiner.
Part One also includes performance art by Allison Fall and a dance performance by Linda Bair Dance Company.
Part Two of the show will feature 15 students from the Entomology 1 class, which is housed in the Art Science Fusion program. “These 15 students have been writing curious tales about insects and illustrating those stories through their art pieces,” Davidson said. “The concept behind their art pieces is based on Cabinets of Curiosities, a pre-Linnaeus collection of curiosities made popular among the affluent in 14th and 15th century Europe.”
“During this show you will experience glow in-the-dark organisms, art made of fungus, large-scale installation, live performance, and sound, art and tales about insects that are so curious they are almost unbelievable!” she said.
The 15 students include Christina Ball, Edna Chen, Alejandra Gonzalez, Whitney Krupp, Danielle Laub, Nina Liu, Huong Nhu Mai, Amy McElroy, Brenda Nguyen, Lawrence Nguyen, Meredith Scarborough, Alison Stewart, Kevin Tran and Hsin Hwei Tsou.
For more information, contact Anna Davidson at adavidson@ucdavis.edu. She is a Ph.D student in the Horticulture and Agronomy Graduate Group, Department of Plant Sciences.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The new year hasn't begun, but already assistant professors Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson are gearing up for the UC Davis Department of Entomology's winter seminar series, set Jan. 9-March 13.
All seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Addition, corner of Hutchison Drive and Kleiber Hall Drive. The seminars will be video-recorded and posted at a later date on UCTV. So, if you can't make it to the seminar in person, you can cozy up to your computer monitor at a later date.
They promise to be educational and informative.
Erin Wilson, a former postdoctoral fellow in the Louie Yang lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, leads off with her talk about "Effects of Omnivorous Invaders on Arthropod Communities in a Fragmented Landscape." She will zero in on those pesty rats (Rattus rattus) in Hawaii.
Wednesday, Jan. 9
Erin Wilson
Postdoctoral Associate, University of Maryland
Title: "Effects of Omnivorous Invaders on Arthropod Communities in a Fragmented Landscape"
Host: Louie Yang, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, Jan. 16
Michael Branstetter (exit seminar)
Buck Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Title: "Uncovering the Origins of a Middle American Ant Radiation: insights from Natural History, Biogeography and Molecular Data"
Host: Phil Ward, professor. UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, Jan. 23
Nick Haddad
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Biology, North Carolina State University
Title: "Landscape Conservation for Rare Insects"
Host: Neal Williams, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, Jan. 30
Paul de Barro
Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO ecosystem sciences
Title: "Unravelling the Complex Bemisia tabaci (Silverleaf Whitefly): From Biotype to Species"
Host: Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology
Wednesday, Feb. 6
Jim Cane
Entomologist, USDA-ARS Bee Biology Lab
Title: "Dietary Needs of Adult Solitary Bees: Consequences for Reproduction and Pollination"
Host: Leslie Saul-Gershanz, graduate student in the Neal Williams lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, Feb. 13
Steven Reppert
Higgins Family Professor of Neuroscience, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Title: "Monarch Butterfly Migration: Behavior to Genes"
Hosts: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor, and Hugh Dingle, emeritus professor
Wednesday, Feb. 20
Nick Mills
Professor, UC Berkeley
Title: "Light Brown Apple Moth – Not a Typical Invader"
Host: Mary Louise Flint, entomology specialist and associate director for Urban and Community Integrated Pest Management (IPM), UC Statewide IPM Program
Wednesday, Feb. 27
Anupama Dahankar
Assistant Professor, UC Riverside
Title: "Taste Receptors and Feeding Preferences in Insects"
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, March 6
Sergio Rasmann
Assistant Professor, University of Lausanne
Title: "Ecological, Evolutionary and Genetic Drivers of Plant Defenses against Herbivores"
Host: Rick Karban, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology
Wednesday, March 13
Anna Whitfield
Associate Professor, Kansas State University
Title: "Dissecting the Molecular Interplay Between Plant Viruses and their Arthropod Vectors"
Host: Diane Ullman, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology, and associate dean for undergraduate academic programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences
So, there you have it--everything from ants, monarchs and the light brown apple moth to feeding preferences in insects.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Those of us addicted to photographing honey bees hate it when the cold, rainy California weather settles in.
December and January are the worst for capturing images of bees outside their hives.
However, if you plant a pollinator garden with seasonal blossoms and locate it near an apiary--Voila!
Such is the case at the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a bee friendly pollinator garden located next to the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
In between rain drops, when the sun bursts through the clouds, you can count on seeing honey bees going about their work.
Yesterday we noticed honey bees foraging in the azure bush germander (Teucrium fruitcans), a perennial that blooms in the winter and spring.
Mother Nature's watercolors!
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Nature's Gallery, a ceramic mosaic mural installed in the UC Davis Arboretum's Ruth Risdon Storer Garden, is gathering lots of visitors--and lots of donors.
This amazing mural by the UC Davis Art Science Fusion Program, directed by entomologist/artist Diane Ullman and self-described "rock artist" Donna Billick, is comprised of more than 140 tiles, all hand-crafted by students, staff, faculty and community members.
Earlier showcased in the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington, D.C., where it drew more than 300,000 visitors, it is now "home sweet home" in the UC Davis Arboretum.
The good folks at the UC Davis Arboretum are seeking donors for the remainder of the plants and insects depicted on the mural. It's sort of like "Adopt a Bug" or "Adopt a Plant." Donors' names, or names memoralizing loved ones, are engraved on the wall.
So, back to the Argentine ant (Linepithema humile). The art work is beautiful, but no one has stepped forward to adopt it. Also available are the giant crane fly (Holorusia rubiginosa), the white-lined sphinx moth (Hyles lineata), a scarab (Bolbelasmus horni), and the meadow spittle bug (Philaenus spumarius).
Our family scooped up the shining leaf chafer beetle (Paracotalpa puncticollis), but only because the honey bee (Apis mellifera), our favorite insect, was unavailable. "The honey bee was among the first to go," Ullensvang said. UC Davis alumnus Dr. Jonathan Bowman donated it in memory of his parents.
If you prefer plants to insects, there are a few plants available: acanthus (Acanthus mollis), Cypriot woundwort (Sideritis cypria), black mondo grass (Opiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'), and Euonymous or “Emerald ‘n Gold” (Euonymus fortunei). (See what's available.)
So, if you're looking for a perfect holiday gift (good cause and lasting legacy), there's an Argentine ant-donor tile that could have your name on it.
Unless, of course, you'd prefer the meadow spittle bug...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's no secret that Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, loves the water.
Well, there's white-water kayaking for one.
And, two, his water balloon battles.
Every summer for the past 10 years, he's hosted a water balloon battle on the Briggs Hall lawn. In a show of camaraderie, Hammock, his colleagues, graduate students and undergraduate students gather on the lawn and douse each other with water balloons--and sometimes heaping buckets of water. It's basically 15 minutes of aim because that's how long it takes. This year's event took place July 13 and ended in record time: 10 minutes.
Hammock doesn't have far to walk to the Big Balloon Battle at Briggs. His office and some of his labs are on the "garden level" of the three-story building.
That would be the basement.
Well, no thanks to the huge rainstorm last weekend, he experienced another kind of water--a flood.
He walked into his office Sunday morning only to see "lots of water and lots of mud." He sent us the photo below.
"Most things were off the floor, but of course, some were not," Hammock said. "Some equipment loss. Could be a nightmare if we get mold in the walls."
Some of his colleagues in the Briggs Hall basement also reported water in their offices and labs.
"We've had worse floods over the last 10 years," Hammock said. "We've had the water level above our head in the bike pit (the bicycle parking lot below the front steps)."
As for the water balloon battles, the Hammock lab is known for working hard and playing hard. Hammock, who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, directs the campuswide Superfund Research Program, the National Institutes of Health Biotechnology Training Program and the NIEHS Combined Analytical Laboratory.
He is a fellow of the Entomological Society of America, a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences, and the recipient of the 2001 UC Davis Faculty Research Lecture Award and the 2008 Distinguished Teaching Award for Graduate and Professional Teaching.
But last weekend, Hammock was the recipient of one of Mother Nature's unexpected "gifts."
The kind of water nobody wants.
