Luck be a lady!

Little kids love selecting lady beetles, aka ladybugs, at the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) booth at Briggs Hall during the annual campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day.

The excitement, the capture, the I-get-to-take-these-home-and-put-them-in-my-garden look.

Who doesn't love a lady beetle? (Besides the gentlemen beetles, of course!)

Karey Windbiel-Rojas, associate director for Urban and Community IPM and area Urban IPM advisor, and her colleagues are ready for the crowds that will descend on entomological displays at the all-day Picnic Day on Saturday, April 15, the 109th annual.  

The Briggs Hall activities, organized by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, include cockroach races, maggot art, forensic entomology, and more. (See Bug Squad blog for events and activities at both Briggs Hall and the Bohart Museum of Entomology)

The UC IPM specialists will provide information information sheets on both endemic and invasive pests and will answer questions.

But back to the lady beetles.

Note that it's not a bug; it's a beetle. Entomologists call them "lady beetles" because this insect is not a true bug. It belong to the family Coccinellidae. Scientists have described about 5000 species worldwide, and about 450 in North America.

"Lady beetles, or ladybugs, are round- or half-dome-shaped insects with hard wing covers," UC IPM writes on its website. "About 200 species occur in California and most are predators both as adults and larvae. Some species specialize on aphids or other groups; others have a broader diet."

Lady beetles, the good guys and gals in the garden, are natural enemies of aphids and other soft-bodied insects. Scientists say a lady beetle may eat around 50 a day, and as many as 5000 aphids in its lifetime.  Sadly, the larvae, which look like mini-alligators, are often mistaken for pests.

Don't kill 'em! Treasure 'em!

Do you like to blend science with art, or is there a budding young artist in your family?

Then you may want to create Maggot Art, a hands-on activity offered by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology during the 109th annual UC Davis Picnic Day celebration on Saturday, April 15.

Just call it "Me and My Maggot."

Maggot Art will take place from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Briggs Hall courtyard. You dip a maggot into water-based, non-toxic paint (your choice of colors), watch it crawl on a piece of white paper, and voila! Maggot Art! It's suitable for framing--or at least a spot on your refrigerator door. 

Like all Picnic Day activities, it's free and open to the public. Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty, and doctoral student Grace Horne, a fellow of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP) and a member of the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, are coordinating the entomological activities.

Maggot Art has been a traditional part of the UC Davis Picnic Day since the early 2000s.

Rebecca O'Flaherty, a former graduate student of Bob Kimsey's, coined the educational teaching curriculum,  "Maggot Art," back in 2001 when she was studying at the University of Hawaii. She was rearing blowflies for her forensic research and wanted an activity to draw the interest of elementary school students.  She also wanted to generate interest and respect for forensic entomology.  

Her Maggot Art quickly drew national interest. The CSI television show featured one of her works, “Ancient Offering,”  which hung on the permanent set in Gil Grissom's office. O'Flaherty also exhibited her work at art shows, including a two-month exhibition at the Capital Athletic Club, Sacramento, in 2007.

And the maggots at UC Davis Picnic Day? "The maggots are Calliphora vacinia, the blue bottle fly," Kimsey said. "Realize that there are likely close to 100 species that can be called blue bottle flies. This particular one is very large as an adult and has huge larvae that are perfect for Maggot Art."

"Although at certain times of the year, it is active in California, particularly around cities, it is not as common as others and I do not have a colony," he added. "There has been a lot of very famous research in entomology done on this species, particularly at University of Massachusetts and Harvard under Vincent Dethier, whose research has provided profound insights into human biology." 

The maggots are on order from Knutson's Sporting Goods, an Internet purveyor based in Brooklyn, Mich., which sells them as live fish bait and as research tools. "Maggots are one of the most popular bait used by ice fisherman in the United States," the company says on its website.

The Department of Entomology and Nematology's "bug" exhibits will be at two sites:

• Briggs Hall, home of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, Kleiber Hall Drive, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The theme is "Bugs, Boom, Bang!" The insect museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, a live "petting zoo" (including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas).

The line-up of entomological events at Briggs Hall includes:

Cockroach Races
Briggs Hall entrance
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Cheer the roaches (American cockroaches) as they race in a specially made race track, encouraged by an air pump.

Bug Doctor
Briggs Hall Entryway 
9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
Meet an entomologist and talk about insects! Bring an insect to identify.  

Dr. Death
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will display and discuss his work. 

Entomology at UC Davis 
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Displays of insects, including bees, ants and more
Graduate students, faculty and emeriti will staff the tables

Scavenger Hunt
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There will be several drawers of insects that people can look through to see if they can spot the insects on the check list

Fly-tying
Briggs Hall courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Fly Fishers of Davis will show you how to tie a fly.

Insect-Themed T-shirt Sales
Briggs hall entryway
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Members of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) will be selling popular insect-themed t-shirts, including "The Beetles" 

Mosquito Control
Briggs Hall entrance
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will be providing information on mosquitoes and how to protect yourself

Other Creepy Crawlies
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
UC Davis doctoral candidate Emma Jochim of the Jason Bond lab and others will display live arachnids, myriapods, tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes and more 

UC  Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) 
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn about pests and how to control them from UC IPM scientists. The staff will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs.

The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, headed by director Amina Harris and affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will host a honey tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the courtyard of Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road. "Come taste and learn about UC Davis honey and honey varietals from North America," she said. "Honey available for purchase."

The UC Davis Picnic Day, a campuswide open house, is billed as "one of UC Davis' most revered traditions and serves as the university's annual open house for prospective and current students, families, alumni, staff, faculty and the greater Davis and regional communities."

If you're interested in the honey bee health decline--and you should be--then you'll want to listen to what research associate Christopher Mayack of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Davis, says about "Chemical Biomarkers and the Physiological Underpinnings of Honey Bee Health Decline" at the next seminar hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. 

His seminar is set for 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, April 12 in 122 Briggs Hall. It also will be virtual. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672

"Parasitic infections, pesticide exposures, and lack of nutrition are thought to interact to cause synergistic declines in honey bee health," Mayack says in his abstract. "First, I will demonstrate how disease can lead to altered behavior that is linked to the honey bee‚ a highly social nature that results in its inability to buffer against energetic stress. Then I will discuss how environmental chemical exposure biomarker profiles (fingerprints) can be used to predict presence of the most common honey bee diseases and how the two are likely interact along metabolic pathways, which is likely to be key in explaining the underlying mechanisms responsible for synergistic declines in honey bee health."

"Lastly, I will present how a systems biology approach coupled with long term monitoring of bee health will be a central powerful tool, moving forward, for unraveling the mystery that surrounds identifying the specific mechanistic causes of global bee health declines."

"Honey bees pollinate $15 billion worth of crops in the United States each year, including more than 130 types of fruits, nuts, and vegetables," according to USDA-National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS). "Honey bees also produce honey, worth about $3.2 million in 2017."

New Scientist featured Mayack in its April 28, 2021 edition in an article headlined: "Honeybees Stress Each Other Out by Warning about Minor Parasites."

"A one-celled fungus called Nosema ceranae can infect the guts of individual bees, causing a disease called nosemosis," wrote science journalist Christa Lesté-Lasserre. "Similar to tapeworm infections in humans, nosemosis apparently makes bees hungrier and reduces their resistance to pesticides and probably viruses, but it isn't particularly fatal. Yet, nosemosis is one of the top reasons honeybee populations are declining."

Mayack, then of Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, "suspected this might have something to do with how the fungus affects the bees' social structures," she wrote.

Mayack, who joined the USDA-ARS in August of 2022,  holds a bachelor's degree in biology (2007) from the State University of New York, Geneseo, and a doctorate in zoology (2012) from Colorado State University. He wrote his dissertation on “Behavioral Alteration in the Honeybee Due to Parasite-induced Energetic Stress.” Mayack served as a 2012-2014 Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zoology Institute, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.

His research interests include systems biology, improving honey bee health, animal physiology, animal behavior, parasite-host interactions, neurobiology, effects of aging, evolution of social behavior, regulation of appetite and energetic homeostasis, and metabolomics/exposomics.

Seminar coordinator Emily Meineke, urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor, has lined up these seminars for the spring quarter. For technical issues (Zoom), contact Meineke at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu.

Have you heard about the newly described kite spider species in Madagascar that is drawing worldwide attention for its lekking behavior?

In lekking, certain species of males in the animal world, including black grouse, peacock and owl parrots, congregate in a courtship ritual to entice females to mate with them. This is unusual because spiders are notoriously solitary and cannibalistic.

Two UC Davis spider experts played a key role in analyzing the genetics of this spider. The new species is an orb weaver named Isoxya manangona. Its species name is derived from the Malagasy verb meaning to "gather" or "aggregate."

Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and project scientist James Starrett headed the genetic analysis. The research paper was recently published in the journal, Insect Systematics and Diversity.

“This paper is significant in a number of respects including the discovery of a new species of orb web-weaving spider that is social; most spiders are solitary predators that are cannibalistic,” said Bond, who doubles as associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. “Although additional behavioral studies are needed to confirm, what is particularly interesting about this paper is that we report what is likely the first known observation of lekking behavior in spiders.”

The paper, “Discovery and Genetic Characterization of Single Cohort Adult Colonies With Male Aggregations, and Preliminary Evidence for Lekking in a Malagasy Kite Spider (Isoxya, Gasteracanthinae),” is drawing worldwide attention, including a piece, “Spider Solidarity: Scientists Discover New Species With Unprecedented Social Behavior,” in Entomology Today, a publication of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America.

Ingi Agnarsson, a professor of zoology at the University of Iceland and the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., headed the international team of researchers.

While looking for bark spiders in the rainforests of Andasibe-Mantadia National Park, the scientists observed large colonies of interconnected webs, built by what they later determined to be a new species.

In examining the webs,  the researchers noticed multiple males gathering close together, sometimes touching, in a central, nonsticking line.  They counted up to 41 interconnected, single-cohort adult female webs with up to 38 adult males aggregating on a central, single, nonsticky line.

In all, their mile-long research area yielded 22 spider colonies, ranging from 2 to 79 spiders in webs two inches to almost eight inches in size.  The spiders are dark gray with black coloring and large protruding spines. The females are about 0.2 inches in size, with “cryptic yellow markings.” The males are smaller but with no yellow markings.

“Spiders are notoriously solitary and cannibalistic, with instances of colonial or social lifestyles in only about 50-60, or ~0.1% of 50,000 described species,” the authors wrote in their abstract. “Population analyses indicate that most colonies consist of multiple cohorts formed by close relatives. Territorial social spiders facultatively form colonies by interlinking individual webs, but further cooperation is infrequent, and only among juveniles or (rarely) females. In spiders therefore, aggregations of males outside of the male-male competition context has been unknown.” 

The researchers noted that the males were “resting tightly together,” but they found “no evidence” of male-male aggression. “Genetic analyses from RAD sequencing suggest that most colonies consist of unrelated individuals,” they wrote in their abstract. “Furthermore, genetic variability of males was somewhat less than that of females. Single cohort colonies made up purely of adults, and peaceful male aggregations, have not previously been observed in spiders. Although direct behavioral observations are preliminary, we speculate based on the available evidence that these colonies may represent a novel and first case of lekking in spiders.”

Since it was near the end of the field season, the researchers had no opportunity for more observations, and never witnessed mating.

Other co-authors of the paper are Zachary Babbitz of Boston College, Matjaž Gregoric of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Onjaherizo Christian Raberahona of the University of Madagascar; Steven Williams, Oxford Brookes University, UK, and Matjaž Kuntner of the Smithsonian Institution. 

Starrett, who joined the Bond lab in 2018, holds a doctorate in genetics, genomics and bioinformatics from UC Riverside. He is a former postdoctoral fellow (2016-2018) in the Jason Bond lab at Auburn University. Professor Bond joined the UC Davis faculty in 2018 from Auburn University, where he directed its Museum of Natural History (2011–2016),  and served as professor and chair of the Auburn Department of Biological Sciences (2016–2018).