- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
He's been planning "Tule and Cattail: A Tale of the Marsh Economy and Its Role in Human Health and Wellbeing” for a year. Sponsored by ENT and the Pacific Southwest Center of Excellence in Vector-Borne Diseases, it's free and family friendly. You can register at https://qr.codes/xYbeAK.
What a great day to spend a Sunday afternoon--and on St. Patrick's Day, too.
Attardo, both a talented scientist and photographer, has been capturing lots of images in the wetland area in Cache Creek conservatory which is adjacent to the Tending and Gathering Garden. "The wetland area is flooded by runoff from the Gordon Slough and is a habitat to plants and animals native to Northern California," says Attardo, chair of the UC Davis Designated Emphasis in the Biology of Vector-Borne Diseases. "The islands in the wetland are populated with tule which is a hardstem bulrush. Tules provide shelter to an array of wildlife. Red-winged blackbirds commonly build their nests in tule stalks. Reptiles and amphibians also live among them. Dragonflies frequently use tule stalks for eclosion and as perches. Fish also use the submerged stalks and root systems as nurseries."
"The tule acts as a water filter by sequestering excess nutrients from the water in collaboration with symbiotic microbes," he commented. "The tule also stabilizes the banks and slows waterflow. The tule is also utilized by native peoples for a variety of purposes including making sleeping mats, baskets, cordage, external and internal walls for homes, canoes. It also functioned as a food source."
Basically, it's a collaborative outreach project "to integrate indigenous ecological knowledge and Western science to provide educational outreach opportunities."
The aim: "to advance the land management aims of local tribal communities and provide a platform to educate about the importance of maintaining wetland biology for climate change, ecological and human health, and vector control," Attardo says.
Here's what's on the agenda (note that the symposium will start promptly at 1 p.m. Snacks and drinks will be provided.)
Agenda
1 to 2:30 p.m.: Presentation by Diana Almendariz: "Cultural History and Traditional Ecological Management of Wetlands" Exploring the deep connection between indigenous history and wetland ecosystems.
2:30 to 2:35 p.m.: Break
2:35 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.: Presentation by Geoff Attardo: "Wetland Biology and its Importance for Ecological and Human Health" Discussing wetland biology's significance in climate change, ecology, and vector-borne disease.
3:15 p.m. – 3:20 p.m.: Break
3:20 p.m.– 3:50 p.m.: Tule Weaving Demonstration: Participants will learn traditional Tule weaving techniques, connecting with the material culture of wetland management.
3:50 p.m. – 4 p.m. Break
4 p.m. - 5 p.m. Question and Answer Session: Attendees can engage with the speakers and delve deeper into the topics discussed.
(For more information, contact Geoffrey Attardo at gmattardo@ucdavis.edu)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Meet Salil Bidaye, Research Group Leader, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience, Jupiter, Fla.
He studies neuronal control locomotion in fruit flies, Drosophila--focusing his research on "understanding how fast and precise locomotor decisions are executed at the level of genetically defined neural circuits."
He will present his seminar, hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT), at 4:10 p.m., Monday, March 4 in 122 Briggs Hall and on Zoom. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
Molecular geneticist and physiologist Joanna Chiu, professor and chair of the ENT department, will introduce him.
"Walking is a complex motor program involving coordinated and distributed activity across the brain and the spinal cord," Bidaye writes in his abstract. "Halting appropriately at the correct time is a critical but often overlooked component of walking control. While recent studies have delineated specific genetically defined neuronal populations in the mouse brainstem that drive different types of halting, the underlying neural circuit mechanisms responsible for overruling the competing walking-state neural activity to generate context-appropriate halting, remain unclear. Here, we elucidate two fundamental mechanisms by which I implement context-appropriate halting."
Bidaye accepted his Research Group Leader position at the Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience in April 2021. He previously served as a postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley in the lab of Professor Kristin Scott. He obtained his Ph.D. at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Vienna, Austria, working in the Barry Dickson laboratory.
While a graduate student in Vienna, "I observed fruit-flies chasing each other during courtship," he relates. "I got hooked on to the intricate control that comprises insect walking. "This fascination kindled by powerful fly genetic tools, has led me to persistently device new behavioral assays and neural recording techniques, aimed at elucidating the fundamental control mechanisms that underlie the exquisite locomotor control that is commonplace in all animals."
His publications include:
- Two Brain Pathways Initiate Distinct Forward Walking Programs in Drosophila, Aug. 20, 2020, journal Neuron
- Six-Legged Walking in Insects: How CPGs, Peripheral Feedback, and Descending Signals Generate Coordinated and Adaptive Motor Rhythms, February 2018, Journal of Neurophysiology
- Neuronal Control of Drosophila Walking Direction, April 4, 2014, Science
Bidaye's seminar is expected to be the last of the winter quarter; the next scheduled speaker, Inga Zasada, a research plant pathologist with the USDA-ARS Horticultural Crops Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Ore., recently canceled her March 11 seminar due to a medical issue in the family.
For any Zoom technical issues, contact seminar coordinator Brian Johnson, associate professor, at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu. The list of winter quarter seminars is here.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She's the recipient of the highly competitive "Distinction in Student Mentoring' Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomology Society of America (PBESA).
So well-deserved!
Other PBESA winners announced today are:
- C. W. Woodworth Award: Elizabeth Beers, Washington State University (WSU)
- Distinction in Student Mentoring Award: Joanna Chiu, UC Davis
- Distinguished Achievement in Extension Award: Wendy Sue Wheeler, WSU
- Excellence in Integrated Pest Management: David Haviland, UC Cooperative Extension, Kern County
- Distinguished Achievement in Teaching: Juli Carrillo, University of British Columbia
- Entomology Team Work Award: Tobin Northfield and colleagues, WSU
- Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology Award: Monika Gulia-Nuss, University of Nevada
- Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology Award: Naoki Yamanaka, UC Riverside
- Plant-Insect Ecosystems Award: Allison Hansen, UC Riverside
- Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity: Silas Bossert, WSU
- Excellence in Early Career Award: Robert Orpet, WSU
- Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship: Grant Wass, Palomar College
- John Henry Comstock Award: Dave Elmquist, University of Idaho
They be honored at the PBESA meeting, set April 14-17 in the city of Waikoloa Beach, Hawaii. PBESA encompasses 11 Western states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico, and U.S. territories.
Nematologist Steve Nadler, professor and former chair of the department, nominated Professor Chiu for the mentoring award. He praised her as “an incredible mentor, inspirational, dedicated and passionate about helping her students succeed, as exemplified by her receiving the 2022 UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching and Mentoring Award for her contributions to graduate student and professional mentoring, and the 2023 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Mentoring Undergraduate Research.
“Dr. Chiu is noted for providing her trainees, many of whom are from underrepresented groups, with very effective career and academic advising,” he wrote. “For example, many first-generation and underrepresented undergraduate trainees from her lab are now successfully enrolled in prestigious biological PhD programs, including programs at Stanford, Cornell, Columbia, UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis, and UC San Francisco. Under her tutelage, her students are first authors of publications in prestigious journals. Even after her undergraduate and graduate students leave the university and settle into their careers, she continues to provide guidance and advice to them.”
Community ecologist Louie Yang, professor of entomology, interim vice chair of the department, and recipient of PBESA's 2023 Distinction in Student Mentoring Award, commented: "Joanna is an extraordinarily talented and committed mentor. She is remarkably good at helping students realize their potential. I've seen this over and over again with undergraduates, graduate students and postdocs."
Chiu, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2010, co-founded and co-directs the campuswide UC Davis Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB), which she and two other UC Davis entomology faculty members (UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim and Yang) launched in 2011 to provide undergraduates with a closely mentored research experience in biology. The RSPIB scholars typically publish their undergraduate research, and many pursue careers in science.
Fact is, Chiu is legendary for both her mentoring and teaching.
Chiu lab alumna Katie Freitas of Stanford wrote: “Beyond teaching me practical research skills, Dr. Chiu helped to spark the most important thing a person needs to be a successful scientist: pure joy in the pursuit of knowledge.”
“Throughout all my time in the Chiu lab, Joanna has never failed to amaze me with her kindness, patience, and her consistency and perseverance in helping all students, both in her lab and in other labs, succeed,” wrote Chiu lab alumna Christine Tabuloc, who received her doctorate in 2023 and is now a postdoctoral researcher in the Chiu lab. “What makes her so outstanding is her commitment to helping us improve as scientists and researchers and preparing us for our future career endeavors.”
Nadler concluded that Chiu “offers the tools, guidance, support, empathy, enthusiasm, and feedback that her undergraduate and graduate students need to thrive and succeed. But above all—and this is crucial--she truly cares about her students.
A native of Hong Kong and a first-generation college student, Joanna received her bachelor's degree, magna cum laude, in biology and music from Mount Holyoke College, Massachusetts, and her doctorate in molecular genetics in 2004 from New York University, New York. She trained as a postdoctoral fellow from 2004 to 2010 in molecular chronobiology at the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. Her postdoctoral training was funded by an NIH F32 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellowship and K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award. (See feature story)
Be sure to read our news story, detailing many of her accomplishments in mentoring.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Nematode Collection, showcased in the Katherine Esau Science Hall, drew hundreds of visitors wanting to know more about the organism commonly known as "roundworm."
Nematologist Shahid Siddique, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and Alison Blundell, a doctoral candidate in Plant Pathology, coordinated the displays.
The collection highlighted both animal and plant parasitic nematodes. Visitors examined the preserved specimens and watched the movement of live free-living C. elegans (good nematodes) via a microscope.
Among the displays:
Animal Parasitic Nematodes: Anisakis nematodes from a Minke whale stomach, heart of a dog infected with heartworms; dog intestine infected with whipworms; a horse stomach parasite community including Parascaris, tapeworms and botfly larvae; adult raccoon roundworms; tree swallow infected with Diplotriaena nematode; and whipworms isolated from the human intestine.
Plant Parasitic Nematodes: Celery, sugar beet, and yam infected with root-knot nematodes; fresh tomato root infected with root-knot nematodes, and a mustard plant infected with cyst nematodes.
"Plant-parasitic nematodes are destructive pests causing losses of billions of dollars annually," Siddique writes on his website. "Economic, health, and environmental considerations make natural host plant resistance a preferred strategy for nematode control, but there are limitations to this approach. In many cases, the resistance conferred by resistance genes is partial, and some of the nematodes are able to survive. Similarly, nematode resistance genes are often effective against only one or a few species, whereas plants are exposed to several pathogens in the field. Another concern is the emergence of pathotypes that can overcome resistance. In view of all these limitations, it is important to identify additional mechanisms and tools that can be used to develop novel and sustainable approaches to the management of nematodes."
Research in the Siddique lab focuses on basic as well as applied aspects of interaction between parasitic nematodes and their host plants. "The long-term object of our research is not only to enhance our understanding of molecular aspects of plant–nematode interaction but also to use this knowledge to provide new resources for reducing the impact of nematodes on crop plants in California," he says.
The 13th annual Biodiversity Museum Day featured 10 museums or collections: Anthropology Museum, Arboretum and Public Garden, Bohart Museum of Entomology, Botanical Conservatory, California Raptor Center, Center for Plant Diversity, Nematode Collection, Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Paleontology Collection, and Phaff Yeast Culture Collection.
Chairing the UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Committee: Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When Distinguished Professor Walter Leal celebrates the newest UC Davis faculty retirees with a special program at the International Center on Wednesday, Feb. 7, he'll pay tribute to 73 emeriti faculty in the cohort. Ten will serve as speakers.
The event, titled "Celebrating Our NewestEmeriti," takes place from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 643 California Ave., Davis. Seating is already sold out, but folks can see the program via Zoom, saidLeal of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and former chair of the Department of Entomology andNematology (ENT). See link at http://tinyurl.com/54ve646n.
Access the Zoom registration at http://tinyurl.com/54ve646n.
The event will have a permanent "home" on YouTube.
Of the 73 in the cohort, only one is from ENT: Professor Emerita Sharon Lawler. She continues her involvement with UC Davis via an active research project, mentoring students, and public service on occasional committees. (See news story). Numerous others from the department plan to attend, including UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emerita Lynn Kimsey, former director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology. She will be part of the next cohort.
"The cut-off time is July 1st," Leal said. "Anyone retiring after that goes to the next year's cohort."
Former ENT faculty member Arthur Shapiro, a UC Davis Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Department of Evolution and Ecology, will be among the speakers.
- Anne Britt, Professor Emerita, College of Biological Sciences (CBS), "Maintenance, Mutation, and Manipulation"
- Simon Cherry, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, College of Engineering (COE) and School of Medicine (SOM), "A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words--The World of Medical Imaging"
- Paul Gepts, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (CA&ES), "Biocultural Agro-Diversity: From Before the Origins of Agriculture to a Future under Climate Change"
- Inés Hernández-Ávila, Professor Emerita, College of Letters and Science (L&S), "Engaging the Indigenous Hemisphere: Research, Relationship Building & Indigenous Futurities"
- Jay Lund, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, COE, "Thoughts on the Uses and Abuses of Universities and How to Improve a Few of Them"
- Isaac Pessah, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM), "Intersection of Natural Products and Industrial Chemicals in Discovery"
- Subhash Risbud, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, COE, "A Career Spent working with STUFF: Ceramic Materials on our Earth and Maybe Out There, Too?"
- Andres Sciolla, M.D., Professor Emeritus, SOM, "Structural Determinants of Health Professions Students' Mental Health: Implications for Institutions of Higher Education"
- Arthur Shapiro, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, CBS, "It is the Year that Bears, Not the Field!" He maintains a butterfly research site at https://butterfly.ucdavis.edu.
- Ronald Tjeerdema, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, CAES, "Chemical Risk: Four Decades of Protecting Public Health and the Environment"
President Suad Joseph of the UC Davis Emeriti Association (UCDEA) will welcome the new retirees. Provost Mary Croughan will deliver the closing remarks.
As an ongoing public service project launched in 2022, Leal organizes and hosts celebrations honoring new UC Davis emeriti, their accomplishments, and their transition to the next chapter of their lives. Leal, a leading global scientist and inventor in the field of insect olfaction and communication, is internationally known for his impact in the fields of molecular, cellular biology and entomology. A member of the UC Davis faculty since 2000, he chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2006-2008 before accepting a position in 2008 as professor of biochemistry in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology. (See news story)