- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
She--and any others near them--will smile every time!
Fact is, Rob Page is our favorite honey bee geneticist, and he was just named the recipient of the 2023 C. W. Woodworth Award, the highest honor accorded by the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA).
It's an honor well deserved. And a honey of an award.
“Dr. Page is a pioneering researcher in the field of evolutionary genetics and social behavior of honey bees, and a highly respected and quoted author, teacher and former administrator,” wrote nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Page is the 12th UC Davis recipient of the award, first presented in 1969. His mentor, and later colleague, Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (for whom the UC Davis bee biology research facility is named), won the award in 1981.
The PBESA awards ceremony will take place at its meeting, April 2-5, in Seattle. The organization encompasses 11 Western states, and parts of Canada, Mexico and U.S. territories.
“One of Dr. Page's most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large,” Nadler related. “It was the first genetic map of any social insect. He was the first to demonstrate that a significant amount of observed behavioral variation among honey bee workers is due to genotypic variation. In the 1990s, he and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; considered the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera. The journal Cell featured their work on its cover. In subsequent studies, he and his team published further research into the regulation of honey bee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior.”
Page's career at ASU led to a series of top-level administrative roles: founding director, School of Life Sciences (2004-2010), vice provost and dean, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (2011-2013) and university provost, 2014-2015.
Nadler praised Page's strategic vision, his leadership and his contributions to science. He built two modern apicultural labs (in Ohio and Arizona), major legacies that are centers of honey bee research and training. The Social Insect Research Group (SIRG) at ASU is regarded as “the best in the world,” according to the late E. O. Wilson. ASU Professor Bert Hoelldobler, in an ASU news release, declared Dr. Page as "the leading honey bee geneticist in the world. A number of now well-known scientists in the U.S. and Europe learned the ropes of sociogenetics in Rob's laboratory.”
While at UC Davis, Page worked closely with Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., the father of honey bee genetics, and together they published many significant research papers and the landmark book, “Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding” (Wicwas Press, 1998). It is considered the most important resource book for honey bee genetics, breeding, and queen rearing. Page is now in the process of updating it.
For 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, Page maintained a honey bee-breeding program, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk. Their contributions include discovering a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees. Their work was featured in a cover story in the journal Nature. In all, Nature featured his work on four covers from work mostly done at UC Davis.
A 2012 Fellow of the Entomological Society of America, Page has held national and international offices. He served as secretary, chair-elect, chair, subsection cb (apiculture and social insects) of ESA from 1986-1989; president of the North American Section, International Union for the Study of Social Insects, 1991; and a Council member, International Bee Research Association, 1995-2000.
Among his many honors:
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize - the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists)
- Foreign Member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Elected to the Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences (the longest continuing academy in the world)
- Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- Fellow of the Entomological Society of America
- Awardee of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship
- Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
- Fellow, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich, Germany, September 2017-August
- Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- James Creasman Award of Excellence (ASU Alumni Association)
- UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Professor, one awarded annually
- Distinguished Emeritus Award, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, one awarded annually
In his letter of support, colleague and research collaborator James R. Carey, distinguished professor of entomology at UC Davis, described Page as "one of the most gifted scientists, administrators, and teachers I have had the privilege to know in my 42 years in academia.”
Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey of Washington State University, former manager of the Laidlaw facility, emphasized Page's importance to the bee breeding and beekeeping industry. Cobey, who has based her career on the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding, wrote that: “The beauty of this system is that it is practical and addresses the unique challenges of honey bee stock improvement. Queens mate in flight with numerous drones and selection is based upon complex behaviors at the colony level, influenced by the environmental. Hence, traditional animal breeding models do not apply well to honey bees.”
Nadler also noted that “Dr. Page was involved in genome mappings of bumble bees, parasitic wasps and two species of ants. His most recent work focuses on the genetic bases of individuality in honey bees; demonstrating genetic links between pollen and nectar collection, tactile and olfactory learning characteristics, and neuroendocrine function. This work provides the most detailed understanding to date of the molecular and genetic bases to task variation in a social insect colony.”
Nadler added: "Not surprisingly, Dr. Page humbly considers his most far-reaching and important accomplishment, the success of his mentees, including at least 25 graduate students and postdocs who are now faculty members at leading research institutions around the world."
Charles William Woodworth (1865-1940), is considered the founder of both the UC Berkeley and UC Davis departments of entomology. William Harry Lange Jr., (1912-2004) was the first UC Davis recipient of the Woodworth award (1978). Other recipients: Harry Laidlaw Jr., (1907-2003), 1981; Robert Washino, 1987; Thomas Leigh (1923-1993), 1991; Harry Kaya, 1998; Charles Summers, (1941-2021), 2009; Walter Leal, 2010; Frank Zalom, 2011; James R. Carey, 2014; Thomas Scott, 2015; and Lynn Kimsey, 2020.
Joining Rob Page in the 2023 PBESA winners' circle from UC Davis: community ecologist Louie Yang, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, recipient of the Distinction in Student Mentoring Award; and UC Davis student Gary Ge, of the UC Davis Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, who won the second annual Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship.
The complete list of this year's PBESA recipients is posted here.
![Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. poses with his wife Michelle (right) and Helene Dillard, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at a 2022 ceremony honoring him as the recipient of the CA&ES Distinguished Emeritus Award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. poses with his wife Michelle (right) and Helene Dillard, dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at a 2022 ceremony honoring him as the recipient of the CA&ES Distinguished Emeritus Award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/98044.jpg)
![Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. checks out a honey bee swarm. Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. checks out a honey bee swarm.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/98045.jpg)
![Robert E. Page Jr. as a graduate student at UC Davis, with his mentor and later colleague, Harry Laidlaw Jr. Robert E. Page Jr. as a graduate student at UC Davis, with his mentor and later colleague, Harry Laidlaw Jr.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/98047.jpg)
![This decorative sign fronts the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. This is where Laidlaw and his graduate student, Rob Page--and later his colleague--worked. Artist Donna Billick of Davis created this sign. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) This decorative sign fronts the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis. This is where Laidlaw and his graduate student, Rob Page--and later his colleague--worked. Artist Donna Billick of Davis created this sign. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/98050.jpg)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Renowned bee geneticist and biologist Robert E. Page Jr., who maintains strong ties to UC Davis and Arizona State University, clarifies this in his newly published book, The Art of the Honey Bee; Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies.
"Foraging honey bees are often grouped into pollen or nectar specialists," Page writes. "However, many or most foragers collect both pollen and nectar. Some bias their foraging toward collecting nectar, others toward pollen. A bee with a strong nectar forging bias accidentally brushes against the anthers of a flower and get pollen on her body hairs while she probes the nectary. After collecting nectar, she grooms herself and stores a small amount of pollen on her hind legs. When she returns to the nest, she brings a load of nectar and a small amount of pollen."
Page points out that foragers have "loading limits." Loading limits: isn't that a wonderful description, especially when you see a honey bee weighted down with a huge ball of pollen?
"Pollen and nectar collecting are intimately related because of loading limits experienced by foragers," Page relates in his 256-page book, 25 years in the making. "A fully loaded bee collecting only nectar can carry about 60 milligrams (mg). A fully loaded pollen forager carries about 30 milligrams."
In his book, published by Oxford University Press, Page covers honey bees as environmental artists, responsible for the "brilliantly colored flowers in our landscapes," and as engineers, engineering "the niches of multitudes of plants, animals and microbes."
The book, chock-full of information, is both well-written and comprehensive. It's a "must have" for anyone who wants to learn more about bees and understand them. Page writes in an easy-going, easy-to-understand style.
“But don't be fooled by the amiable and personal style—the book is comprehensive—from colony collapse disorder to colony-level evolution—and chock full of the latest results, presented with clarity and depth, leavened with razor-sharp insights into social evolution,” noted Gene Robinson, director, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology and Department of Entomology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
The book, Page says, is geared toward “the person who has a basic knowledge of biology and a fascination with bees, perhaps an educated hobby beekeeper--there are a lot of them--or an undergraduate or graduate student with an interest.”“
The internationally renowned bee geneticist is known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
At UC Davis, he maintained a honey bee-breeding program for 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. They discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees.
UC Davis named him the 2019 distinguished emeritus professor. Nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, praised Page as “a pioneer researcher in the field of behavioral genetics, an internationally recognized scholar, a highly respected author, a talented and innovative administrator, and a skilled teacher responsible for mentoring many of today's top bee scientists…he is arguably the most influential honey bee biologist of the past 30 years.”
Page has authored more than 250 research papers, including five books. Among them “The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution” (Harvard University Press, 2013) and “Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding,” with Harry H. Laidlaw (Wicwas Press, 1997). He is a highly cited author on such topics as Africanized bees, genetics and evolution of social organization, sex determination, and division of labor in insect societies.
Page received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1980, and joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989. in 2004, when he was chair of the Department of Entomology, Arizona State University (ASU) recruited him for what would become a series of top-level administrative roles. He advanced from director of the School of Life Sciences to dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost. Today he holds the titles of provost emeritus of ASU and Regents professor emeritus, as well as UC Davis department chair emeritus, professor emeritus, and UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor.
Highly honored by his peers, Page is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Science, Leopoldina (the German National Academic of Science), and the California Academy of Science. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (Humboldt Prize, 1995), the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship (2013), James W. Creasman Award of Excellence at ASU (2018).
![A honey bee foraging on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) has almost reaching its loading limit. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) A honey bee foraging on a Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) has almost reaching its loading limit. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/73161.jpg)
![A honey bee nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) A honey bee nectaring on a Mexican sunflower, Tithonia. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/73162.jpg)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And it's sure to "bee" among the very best.
Eminent honey bee geneticist and biologist Robert E. Page Jr. has authored a 256-page book, “The Art of the Bee: Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies” (Oxford University Press), to be published Aug. 6.
Did you know that honey bees are both artists and engineers?
As environmental artists, they are "responsible for the brilliantly colored flowers in our landscapes," and as environmental engineers, they engineer “the niches of multitudes of plants, animals and microbes.”
The book "is a long time in the making,” said Page, who received his doctorate in entomology at UC Davis and served as a professor and chair of the Department of Entomology (now Entomology and Nematology) before heading to Arizona State University (ASU), where he advanced to school director, college dean and university provost.
“Twenty-five years ago, my friend and mentor Harry Laidlaw (for whom the UC Davis bee facility is named) wanted to write a honey bee biology textbook,” Page recalled. When they finished the outline, “it looked very much like the excellent book by Mark Winston The Biology of the Honey Bee, published in 1987 by Harvard University Press. I decided we didn't need another one, and we still don't.”
The book differs in that it's a collection of “sparkling essays” that “read like mystery stories,” said Rudiger Wehner, professor and director emeritus of the Institute of Zoology, University of Zürich. “With these lucidly written stories, Page takes us on a delightful journey through the many biological traits that on the whole constitute the honeybees' social contract.”
Page said his book is geared toward “the person who has a basic knowledge of biology and a fascination with bees, perhaps an educated hobby beekeeper--there are a lot of them--or an undergraduate or graduate student with an interest.”
“Prior to the rise of flowering plants, the landscape was dull,” Page begins. “The first plants invaded land more than 450 million years ago. Species of ferns, horsetails, club mosses, and other “primitive,” non-seed-producing, non-flowering plants dominated. The earth was painted from a palette of green and brown. The first seed plants were gymnosperms, which originated around 100 million years later and eventually gave rise to the conifers that dominated the earth with massive forests. The first flowering plants, the angiosperms, appeared perhaps as early as 250 million years ago. The rise of flowering plants resulted in a burst of new plant species as they adapted to their insect pollinators, mostly beetles and short-tongued flies. Think of how the landscape changed. “
In addition to chapters on environmental artists and environmental engineering, Page includes chapters on social contracts, superorganisms, reproductive competitions, and concludes with “The song of the queen.”
In the epilogue, Page ponders the complexity of individual bees and their colonies, comparing them to humans. “Members of complex societies live close together in closed nests, shared home sites, villages, etc., or in closely connected nomadic tribes. As groups, they typically have a set of tacit rules by which they live that involves working for the good of the group, systems of group and resource defense, internal mechanisms of policing cheaters that don't cooperate and live by the rules, a division of labor often associated with group defense and gathering and sharing resources, and usually asymmetries and rules associated with reproduction. These same general characteristics seem to apply broadly across eusocial insects (aphids, termites, bees, ants, and wasps), eusocial rodents (naked mole rats), higher apes, and humans. Why? The similarities are inescapable due to the nature of social contracts; they must have specific elements to protect the power and will of individuals, whether citizens of the United States of America or workers in a honey bee colony. The contract binds individuals to a society, but the specific social organization evolves by reverse engineering. Natural selection acts on the whole colony; social structure evolves to fit the needs of the group within a given environment. “
Page points out that “Anthropocentric thinking can obscure the way we view nature and lead to false conclusions. Look at Aristotle and honey bee division of labor: For more than 2,000 years it was thought that the bees that work in the nest were postpubescent old men because they're hairy! In fact, the older bees forage and aren't hairy because the hairs break off as they age. I now see my work in a new light; we aren't so different, bees and humans. The elements of our social structures, and how they come about, have many similarities.”
Page is known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
At UC Davis, he maintained a honey bee-breeding program for 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. They discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees.
Page has authored more than 250 research papers, including five books. Among them “The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution” (Harvard University Press, 2013) and “Queen Rearing and Bee Breeding,” with Harry H. Laidlaw (Wicwas Press, 1997). He is a highly cited author on such topics as Africanized bees, genetics and evolution of social organization, sex determination, and division of labor in insect societies.
Page, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1980, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989 and left as emeritus chair of the Department of Entomology in 2004 when ASU recruited him for what would become a series of top-level administrative roles. He advanced from director of the School of Life Sciences to dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost. Today he holds the titles of provost emeritus of ASU and Regents professor emeritus, as well as UC Davis department chair emeritus, professor emeritus, and UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor.
Page is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Brazilian Academy of Science, Leopoldina (the German National Academic of Science), and the California Academy of Science. He is a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (Humboldt Prize, 1995), the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Fellowship (2013), James W. Creasman Award of Excellence at ASU (2018).
![Eminent honey bee geneticist and biologist Robert E. Page Jr. with his new book, Eminent honey bee geneticist and biologist Robert E. Page Jr. with his new book,](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/72705.jpg)
![Robert E. Page Jr. examines a bee swarm. He is the author of a new book, Robert E. Page Jr. examines a bee swarm. He is the author of a new book,](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/72706.jpg)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The award, administered by the UC Davis Emeriti Association, honors outstanding scholarship work or service performed since retirement by a UC Davis emeritus.
Distinguished professor emerita M. R. C. Greenwood, chair of the UC Davis Emeriti Association Awards and Recognition Committee, described him as a “pioneer researcher in the field of behavioral genetics, an internationally recognized scholar, a talented and innovative administrator, and a skilled teacher responsible for mentoring many of today's top bee scientists.”
Page's work on bee behavior “has set the standard nationally and internationally,” Greenwood said, adding “and many people in this room will know how important that research is to health and well being of our bees today.”
Page retired from UC Davis in 2004 after serving as chair of the Entomology Department (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). “Then he was recruited to be the founding director of the School of Life Sciences at Arizona State University,” she said. “Today Dr. Page continues to work on how reproductive regulatory networks are altered by natural selection for division of labor in honor bees. As the 2019 UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Professor, he does our university proud.”
Page received a $1000 check, and a plaque is forthcoming. He will deliver a presentation on his research at the November UC Davis Brainfood Talk.
In accepting the award, Page called it “a great and distinct honor.”
“I have multiple attachments to UC Davis,” he said. “I was a graduate student here (doctorate in entomology in 1980) and my wife was an undergraduate who graduated from here.”
Page said he met and recognized many people at the emeriti luncheon. “I've walked around and my Damaged Facial Recognition Software was just kind of spinning around,” he quipped. “But at any rate, a number of you I definitely remember and recognize and some of you, I almost remember and recognize.”
UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter welcomed the crowd. Chancellor Gary S. May chronicled some of the UC Davis national and international achievements, and thanked the academic retirees for “your dedicated service. And I wish you luck navigating this new chapter in your lives. So go boldly and Go Ags!” (UC Davis' strategic plan, “To Boldly Go,” outlines the aspirations and methods for guiding the university to new heights of distinction over the next 10 years.)
Greenwood announced the recipients of the 2019 Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship Awards, memorializing the former UC Regent. They are Caroline Chantry and Anthony Philipps, both emeriti professors in the Department of Pediatrics, UC Davis School of Medicine. Chantry received the award for her ongoing project, “Strengthening Babies Through Mobile Health,” while Philipps is pursuing “Pediatric Heart Disease Training in Haiti.”
“Unfortunately, neither of our rewardees—since they are extremely busy in their retirement doing research—are able to be here today,” Greenwood told the crowd.
In his nomination letter, Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, wrote that “Robert Page is arguably the most influential honey bee biologist of the past 30 years,”
Born and reared in Bakersfield, Kern County, Rob received his bachelor's degree in entomology, with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University in 1976. After receiving his doctorate from UC Davis in 1980, he served as assistant professor at The Ohio State University before joining the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1989 as an associate professor. He began working closely with Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., (the father of honey bee genetics) for whom the university's bee facility is named. Together they published many significant research papers.
Page chaired the Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004, when Arizona State University recruited him to be the founding director of the School of Life Sciences of Arizona State University (ASU). His ASU career advanced to dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost.
Page is known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
At UC Davis, he maintained a honey bee-breeding program for 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. They discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees. Their work was featured in a cover story in the journal Nature. In all, Nature featured his work on four covers from work mostly done at UC Davis.
Page and his lab pioneered the use of modern techniques to study the genetic basis of social behavior evolution in honey bees and other social insects. He was the first to employ molecular markers to study polyandry and patterns of sperm use in honey bees. He provided the first quantitative demonstration of low genetic relatedness in a highly eusocial species.
His work has garnered a significant impact in the scientific community through his research on the evolutionary genetics and social behavior of honey bees. He was the first to demonstrate that a significant amount of observed behavioral variation among honey bee workers is due to genotypic variation. In the 1990s, he and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; considered the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera. The journal Cell featured their work on its cover. In subsequent studies, he and his team published further research into the regulation of honey bee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior.
Page has authored than 250 research papers, including five books: among them “The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution,” published by Harvard University Press in 2013. He is a highly cited author on such topics as Africanized bees, genetics and evolution of social organization, sex determination, and division of labor in insect societies. His resume shows more than 18,000 citations.
Highly honored by his peers, Page is a fellow of a number of organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, the Entomological Society of America, and organizations in Germany and Brazil. He received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, known at the Humboldt Prize, the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists. He most recently received the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
![From left are distinguished emerita professor M.R.C. Greenwood, chair of the UC Davis Emeriti Association Awards and Recognition Committee; distinguished emeritus professor Robert E. Page Jr., and UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) From left are distinguished emerita professor M.R.C. Greenwood, chair of the UC Davis Emeriti Association Awards and Recognition Committee; distinguished emeritus professor Robert E. Page Jr., and UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/57918.jpg)
![UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May addresses the crowd. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May addresses the crowd. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/57919.jpg)
![The crowd at the annual Academic Retiree and Emeriti Award Luncheon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) The crowd at the annual Academic Retiree and Emeriti Award Luncheon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/57920.jpg)
![Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. (foreground) drew praise and applause at the luncheon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page Jr. (foreground) drew praise and applause at the luncheon. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/57921.jpg)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And now he's a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor!
Page, a UC Davis alumnus whose administrative career took him from chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology to provost of Arizona State University, is the recipient of the 2019 UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Award.
Nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, said “Robert Page is arguably the most influential honey bee biologist of the past 30 years." The award, administered by the UC Davis Emeriti Association, honors outstanding scholarship work or service performed since retirement by a UC Davis emeritus.
Page will receive the award--a plaque and a cash prize of $1000--at a luncheon hosted by Chancellor Gary May on Monday, Jan. 28 in the UC Davis Conference Center.
Page, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1980, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989 and served as the chair of the Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004, the year he gained emeritus status and the year Arizona State University recruited him for what would be a series of top-level administrative roles. He continues his research, teaching and public service in both Arizona and California, but now resides in California, near Davis, with his family.
Page is known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
Page and his lab pioneered the use of modern techniques to study the genetic basis of social behavior evolution in honey bees and other social insects. He was the first to employ molecular markers to study polyandry and patterns of sperm use in honey bees. He provided the first quantitative demonstration of low genetic relatedness in a highly eusocial species.
His work has garnered a significant impact in the scientific community through his research on the evolutionary genetics and social behavior of honey bees. He was the first to demonstrate that a significant amount of observed behavioral variation among honey bee workers is due to genotypic variation. In the 1990s he and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; considered the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera. The journal Cell featured their work on its cover. In subsequent studies, he and his team published further research into the regulation of honey bee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior.
He has authored than 250 research papers, including five books: among them The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution, published by Harvard University Press in 2013. He is a highly cited author onsuch topics as Africanized bees, genetics and evolution of social organization, sex determination, and division of labor in insect societies. His resume shows more than 18,000 citations
Born and reared in Bakersfield, Kern County, Rob received his bachelor's degree in entomology, with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University in 1976. Following his doctorate from UC Davis in 1980, he served as assistant professor at The Ohio State University. He joined the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1989 as an associate professor and began working closely with Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., (the father of honey bee genetics) for whom the university's bee facility is named. Together they published many significant research papers.
In 2004, Page was recruited by ASU as the director of the School of Life Sciences of Arizona State University (ASU). He organized three departments--biology, microbiology and plant sciences, comprising more than 600 faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff--into one unified school. As its founding director, he established the school as a platform for discovery in the biomedical, genomic and evolutionary and environmental sciences. He also established ASU's Honey Bee Research Facility.
His ASU academic career advanced to a number of titles: dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost. Today he holds the titles of provost emeritus of ASU and Regents professor emeritus, as well as UC Davis department chair emeritus, professor emeritus, and now distinguished emeritus professor.
Page's colleagues laud his strategic vision, his innovative leadership, and his stellar contributions to science.
James R. Carey, distinguished professor of entomology at UC Davis, who continues to work with Dr. Page on research projects, describes him as "one of the most gifted scientists, administrators, and teachers I have had the privilege to know in 30 years in academia.”
Colleague Bert Hoelldobler, an ASU professor of life sciences, said Page is “the leading honey bee geneticist in the world. A number of now well-known scientists in the U.S. and Europe learned the ropes of sociogenetics in Rob's laboratory.”
Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, former manager of the Laidlaw facility and now of Washington State University, praised Page's major contributions to the beekeeping industry, including the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding Theory. This has offered a practical system of stock improvement for honey bees, used worldwide, she said. “It's a challenge, as the queen mates in flight with numerous drones and selection is based upon complex behaviors at the colony level, influenced by the environmental.” She has applied this theory throughout her career, developing and maintaining a population of Carniolan bees, now in their 36th generation.
Among Page's many honors:
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize - the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists)
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Elected to the Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences (the longest continuing academy in the world)
- Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- Fellow of the Entomological Society of America
- Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
- Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Science
- Recipient of the James W. Creasman Award of Excellence from the Arizona State University Alumni Association
- Fellow, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich, Germany, September 2017-August 2018
- Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Congratulations, Rob Page!
![Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page examines a swarm at Arizona State University, where he served as provost. Honey bee geneticist Robert E. Page examines a swarm at Arizona State University, where he served as provost.](https://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad/blogfiles/57453.jpg)