- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Then you'll want to attend--or listen via Zoom--the next seminar hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Nissa Coit, a master's graduate student in the laboratory of Extension apiculturist Elina Niño, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will present her exit seminar on "Effects of Ethyl Oleate Pheromone on Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)" at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 28.
She will deliver her seminar in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, UC Davis campus, and virtually on Zoom. The link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"In winter, honey bees undergo a transition to a diutinus state, during which time brood rearing declines or stops entirely, and worker bees live for up to 20 weeks," Coit says in her abstract. "The mechanism, causes, and geographic prevalence of this transition are unknown, and can make managing honey bees in certain regions challenging. We hypothesized that the transition to overwintering is regulated by the forager pheromone, ethyl oleate, when forager bees are relegated to the hive for longer periods of time during poor weather conditions. We exposed bees of different ages and tasks to ethyl oleate and measured accepted markers of overwintering. Our findings indicate ethyl oleate may affect the efficiency of metabolism of protein into fat stores, allowing young bees to prepare for suboptimal conditions. Ethyl oleate, when concomitant with other factors such as gradual decline in brood pheromone, pollen dearth, cold temperatures, and photoperiod, may contribute to the transition to overwintering."
She received her master's degree from UC Davis on Sept. 9, and is currently working and living in Vermont. "I work at Sterling College, where I am teaching entomology, ecology, biology, and apiculture in the undergraduate program, as well as developing course materials for the continuing education department in a variety of subjects such as water management, agroecology, pest management, and sustainable agriculture and food systems."
Her biography on the Niño website includes: "She was founder and president of the Carolina Beekeeping Club, whose efforts recently succeeded in making UNC, a Bee Campus USA. She first became interested in honey bees in high school while taking a summer class at Cornell. In college, she began volunteering at the NC State University Honey Bee Research Laboratory to gain more experience with bees. Since then, she has also worked at NC State as a research technician and conducted her own research on pheromone variation of brood and queens among different stocks of bees."
Coit studied abroad at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand, in 2017, from July to November.
Emily Meineke, assistant professor of urban landscape entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, coordinates the department's seminars for the 2022-23 academic year. All 11 seminars will take place both person and virtually at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesdays in Room 122 of Briggs Hall except for the Nov. 9th and Dec. 7th seminars, which will be virtual only, she said. (See list of seminars)
For further information on the seminars or technical difficulties with Zoom, contact Meineke at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
These little insects pollinate figs, but some figs are self-pollinated.
"There's no real way to tell from the outside, but if the fig contains seeds it will have been pollinated [by a fig wasp],” UC Extension specialist Louise Shanahan, based at the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, told writer Ali Francis of the magazine Bon Appétit in a Sept. 7, 2022 feature article, "What Do You Mean There Are Dead Wasps in My Figs?"
Now for the entomological side.
Fig wasps will be among the wasps discussed when the Bohart Museum of Entomology at UC Davis hosts an open house, "Weird and Wonderful Wasps" from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 25 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. It's free and family friendly.
"Fig wasps are among the weirdest insects I can think of both in their obligatory relationship with plants and the strange looking males," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. "Females are winged and wasp-like; males on the other hand spend their entire lives in the fig fruits and look really strange and are wingless and often look like they only have four legs."
Fig wasps belong to the superfamily Chalcidoidea and spend their larval stage inside figs. "Most are pollinators but others simply feed off the plant," according to Wikipedia. "The non-pollinators belong to several groups within the superfamily Chalcidoidea, while the pollinators are in the family Agaonidae. While pollinating fig wasps are gall-makers, the remaining types either make their own galls or usurp the galls of other fig wasps; reports of them being parasitoids are considered dubious."
Sunday's open house is the first open house of the academic year. The focus will be on a variety of wasps, including Asian giant hornets, aka "murder hornets," pteromalids, oak galls, and fig wasps, among others.
"At the wasp event, we will also have some photos from Dr. Ismail Seker, who earlier displayed his coffee table book on silk moths," said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum's education and outreach coordinator. Seker, a Turkish-trained medical doctor, "has a book coming out on chestnuts next, but he is working on olives and figs as well," Yang added. (See Bug Squad blog on Dr. Seker's silk moth presentation at the Bohart Museum). Seker's son, Erkin Seker, is a UC Davis professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Visitors are also invited to hold and take images of the insects from the live "petting zoo," which will include Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, also known as "walking sticks."
Visitors will learn about the smallest fairy wasps to the "murder hornets"; what role wasps play in plant galls and figs; and how to distinguish a parasitoid from a parasite. Kimsey will discuss the Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, dubbed by the news media as “the murder hornet." The Entomological Society of America recently established as its official common name, “northern giant hornet.”
The Bohart Museum is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also houses a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas; and a gift shop with insect-themed items. More information is available on the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by contacting bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A landmark textbook on the newly emerging field of biodemography, lead-authored by UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey, has evolved into another landmark: Carey has created, recorded and published a first-of-its-kind video guidebook with free worldwide access.
The video guidebook showcases the 480-page textbook, Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods (Princeton University Press, 2020), co-authored by Deborah Roach, professor and chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Biology. Carey and Roach define the pioneering field of biodemography as “integrating biology, mathematics and demography.”
Carey, a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty since 1980 and a senior scholar with the UC Berkeley Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA), opted to create the video playbook because “we believe the contents should be available to anyone interested in any aspect of biodemography regardless of their access to the book or their primary language.”
The video guidebook, now online on the UC Berkeley Population Sciences website, is unique in that never before has a scientific textbook author produced, scripted and narrated videos that encompass a book's entire content. The playlist includes 175 separate presentations, closed captioned in English and subtitled through YouTube in 300 different languages. The content covers the contents of his entire biodemography book with video modules on content ranging from life tables, mortality models and reproduction to stable population theory, matrix models and applied demography. He also has several dozen videos on best practices in visualization and presentation strategies.
Basically, the video guidebook is a cross-media learning experience that's viewers will find engaging, enduring and enjoyable. "Readers can scroll, scan and peruse the book's contents as well as add notes, bookmark pages, and highlight text,” Carey said. “Unlike books video content can be easily added or updated and as well as both closed captioned and foreign language subtitled.”
His playlist includes demographic basics, life tables, mortality, reproduction, population models, and such topics as the Donner Party tragedy, the Titanic disaster, Napoleon's Grand Armée, and “Why the Oldest Person in the World Keeps Dying.”
Carey also delves into “Entomology and Insect-Related Videos” (see https://bit.ly/3lgYcD2), ecology and conservation biology, and other specialty grouped topics. In addition, his playlist includes video appendices of African elephants and mountain gorillas that he recorded on his teaching trips to Africa.
Carey describes demography as “the taproot of an interdisciplinary tree containing multiple branches whose demographic topics range from health, disease, marriage and fertility to anthropology, paleontology, history, and education. Our book now adds a new branch to this tree—biodemography.”
Highly honored for his research, teaching and public service Carey served as the principal investigator of a 10-year, $10 million federal grant on “Aging in the Wild,” encompassing 14 scientists at 11 universities.
Carey won a 2018 global award in the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching Program, an academic competition sponsored every two years by Baylor University, Waco, Texas. He received the 2015 Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award from the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Pacific Branch of ESA. The UC Davis Academic Senate honored him as the recipient of its 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
Carey is a fellow of four organizations; American Association for the Advancement of Science, Entomological Society of America, California Academy of Science and the Gerontological Society of America. He holds a doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Do you have a question about wasps or want to learn more about them?
It's the first open house of the academic year and will focus on Asian giant hornets, aka "murder hornets," pteromalids, oak galls, and fig wasps, among others.
The family arts-and-crafts activity will be to create "gall ghosts."
Visitors are also invited to hold and take images of the insects from the live "petting zoo," which will include Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects, also known as "walking sticks."
Visitors will learn about the smallest fairy wasps to the "murder hornets"; what role wasps play in plant galls and figs; and how to distinguish a parasitoid from a parasite. Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, will discuss the Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia, dubbed by the news media as “the murder hornet." The Entomological Society of America recently established as its official common name, “northern giant hornet.”
A single colony of the Asian giant hornet was found and destroyed Sept. 18, 2019 in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, Canada, and a single dead hornet was found Dec. 8, 2019 in nearby Blaine, Wash. Since then, it also has been sighted-- and destroyed--in both Canada and Washington state.
Kimsey and two other wasp experts published “The Diversity of Hornets in the Genus Vespa (Hymenoptera: Vespidae; Vespinae); Their Importance and Interceptions in the United States,” in the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity in May of 2020. (See https://bit.ly/3BVZ34Y)
Lead author Allan Smith-Pardo, U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), and co-authors James Carpenter of the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Invertebrate Zoology, and Kimsey covered 22 species of hornets, including V. mandarinia.
Fairy wasps, which belong to the family of chalcidoid wasps, are tiny insects that include the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of 0.139mm, and the smallest known flying insect, only 0.15mm. All known fairy wasps are parasitoids of the eggs of other insects.
Other special events planned by the Bohart Museum this year include:
Saturday, Oct. 15, 1 to 4 p.m.
Insects, Art & Culture
Visitors will learn about insects through the lenses of art and culture. This event is part of Spirit Week (Oct. 10-16) for Aggie students, parents and alumni, but all are welcome.
Saturday, Oct. 15, 11 to 11:50 a.m.
Special Talk: Plants, Insects and Art: Mary Foley Benson's Scientific Illustrations
Location: Teaching and Learning Complex (TLC) Building, 482 Hutchison Drive, UC Davis campus
This event is part of Spirit Week for Aggie students, parents and alumni, but all are welcome. Srdan Tunic, a candidate for a master's degree in art history and a Bohart associate, will be highlighting the scientific illustrations of Mary Foley Benson (1905-1992), formerly of the U. S. Department of Agriculture's Bureau of Entomology and the Smithsonian Institution and who later worked for UC Davis entomologists. Much of her work appears on campus. (See research story on the artist by Malcolm Furniss)
Sunday, Nov. 6, 1 to 4 p.m.
Dragonflies Rule!
Dragonflies are described as "the ultimate predator both in the water and the air." Visitors will meet scientists and natural historians who will share information on the world of dragonflies.
The Bohart Museum is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens. It also houses a live “petting zoo,” comprised of Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas; and a gift shop with insect-themed items. More information is available on the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or by contacting bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Yellowjackets, commonly known as "meat bees," in comparison to the "vegetarian" honey bees, will be among the wasps featured at the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Sept. 25 in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus. The theme: "Weird and Wonderful Wasps."
The open house is free and family friendly. A family arts and crafts activity is also planned.
"Yellowjackets are social wasps that build large, hidden nests," writes Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology, on one of her online fact sheets. "The nests are usually subterranean in rodent burrows or in cavities in trees, walls or attics.
"Yellow jacket nests can be huge with 50,000 to 100,000 workers," Kimsey points out. "In temperate climates these colonies are annual. Their nests die in the fall after producing new queens. New queens produced by the colonies in the fall spend the winter in protected places until spring when they found new colonies. Yellow jacket colonies can become perennial in warmer climates, such as in Hawaii and coastal California. In these situations the nests can become enormous, with millions of workers!"
Kimsey says that yellowjacket nests "can be distinguished from paper wasp nests because the brood cells are encased in a paper envelope so they can't be seen without taking off the outer envelope. These wasps generally feed on live prey, but the pest species, such as Vespula pensylvanica, will scavenge other sources of meat and sugar, including sodas, hamburgers and road kill. They will also visit aphids and scale insects for honeydew."
At the open house, visitors will learn about the smallest fairy wasps to the "murder hornets"; what role wasps play in plant galls and figs; and how to distinguish a parasitoid from a parasite. Kimsey will discuss the Asian giant hornet, Vespa mandarinia. A single colony of the Asian giant hornet was found and destroyed Sept. 18, 2019 in Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, Canada, and a single dead hornet was found Dec. 8, 2019 in nearby Blaine, Wash. Since then, it also has been sighted-- and destroyed--in both Canada and Washington state.
Fairy wasps, in the family of chalcidoid wasps, are tiny insects. They include the world's smallest known insect, with a body length of only 0.139 mm (0.0055 in), and the smallest known flying insect, only 0.15 mm (0.0059 in) long, according to Wikipedia. The fairy wasps are found in temperate and tropical regions throughout the world. The family contains approximately 100 genera with 1400 species. All known fairy wasps are parasitoids of the eggs of other insects, Wikipedia says, "and several species have been successfully used as biological pest control agents."
(See Bug Squad blog on European paper wasps and Bohart Museum Fact Sheet comparing yellowjackets to European paper wasps.)