- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When the Department of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, launches its winter noonhour seminar series on Wednesday, Jan. 6, crickets will be first in line.
UC Riverside postdoctoral researcher Nathan Bailey will speak on "The Role of Behavioral Plasticity in the Evolution of Silent Crickets" from 12:10 to 1 p.m. Wednesday in 122 Briggs Hall.
Bailey focuses his research on sexual selection, behavioral ecology, phylogeography and insect immunity "with an emphasis on how behavioral plasticity shapes selection and influences reproductive isolation."
His study systems include Mormon crickets (Anabrus simplex) and the Pacific field cricket (Teleogryllus oceanicus).
He maintains an informative Web site that includes information on his work and a photo gallery of brilliant images. He links to the Tree of Life and BugGuide.Net, among other sites.
Bailey will be introduced by postdoctoral researcher Andrew Forbes of the Jay Rosenheim lab.
Organizing the winter seminar series are graduate student Ian Pearse of the Rick Karban lab and faculty member Neal Williams, a native pollinator specialist.
The seminars are open to all interested persons.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Like to know more about the biocontrol of tea pests? Aging of insects? What honey bee research is under way?
If you can't physically attend the UC Davis Department of Entomology's fall seminars, starting Wednesday noon, Oct. 7 in 122 Briggs Hall, you can participate via Webinars or listen to the archived Webcasts. Most will be Webcast.
UC Davis entomology professor James Carey, former chair of the UC Systemwide Academic Senate University Committee on Research Policy, launched a pilot program in February to inform and educate the scientific community and the public on research findings.
Carey's lab researchers and graduate students began taping the series of Webinars on Feb. 18. Then came the summer break. Now that we're into the fall season, the Webinars will continue Oct. 7.
Here's the link to access the Webinar.
The UC Davis Webinars drew international attention on March 4 when chemical ecologist Tom Baker of Pennsylvania State University spoke on “But Do We Shoot the Driver? Meeting New Challenges in Detecting Agents of Harm by Using Old Entomological Knowledge.” Joining in were listeners from 10 countries: Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Mexico, France, Spain, Netherlands, Germany and Japan as well as the United States.
“We were hooked up to Pennsylvania State, too, so my colleagues knew where I was at, what I was doing and what I was saying,” Baker quipped.
Fellow chemical ecologist Walter Leal, UC Davis professor of entomology, who hosted Baker, later marveled at the technology.
“Just think, someone was sitting at a computer in Japan at 4 in the morning listening to Tom,” Leal said.
Both the virtual and physical audience can ask questions.
Webinars not only save time, but money, Leal pointed out. “The average round trip cost for airfare only for the 10 countries that participated in Baker’s seminar is $1,480, with Mexico being the cheapest ($700) and Montivideo, Uruguay the most expensive ($3,600).”
“It means that we saved in average $59,200 considering one participant per computer,” Leal said. “Note that in a couple of cases the presentation was displayed for multiple participants. If all participants would be accounted for, the cost would be astronomical.”
“As for travel time, only for each way, the average for the 10 countries would be 20 hours and 30 minutes, with the shortest trip being from Mexico (six-hour flight plus six hours of layover and check-in) and the longest from Montivideo (19-hour flight, plus six hours for layover and check-in),” Leal said.
The archived Webinars, from Feb. 18 through May 27, are online.
Here's the fall line-up:
Oct. 7: Biological control scientist Madoka Nakai, associate professor, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, will discuss biocontrol of tea pests in her talk, “A Novel Protein from Lepidopteran Virus Killing Endoparasitoid and Viral Control for Tea Pests in Japan” (Webcast)
Oct. 14: Plant taxonomist Dean Kelch, assistant researcher, University and Jepson Herbaria, UC Berkeley, “Mimicking Science Interpretation: A Visit to the Creation Museum” (this one won't be Webcast)
Oct. 21: Entomologist James R. Carey, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology, “Demography of the Finitude: Insights into Lifespan, Aging and Death from Insect Studies" (Webcast)
Oct. 28: Insect virus researcher Michelle Flenniken, Haagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Fellow, “Microarray-Based Pathogen Detection and the Antiviral Role of RNA Interference in Honey Bees” (not Webcast)
Nov. 4: Chemical ecologist Jonathan Gershenzon, professor, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany, "Plant Volatiles: Versatile Agents of Defense"
Nov. 18: Community ecologist and population biologist Matt Forister, assistant professor, University of Nevada-Reno, on the “Agricultural” Melissa Blue butterfly: “Anatomy of a Niche Shift: Lycaeides melissa and the Colonization of Alfalfa”
Dec. 2: Entomologist Michael Parrella, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology, “An International Perspective on Sustainable Production in Greenhouses”
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
It's National Pollinator Week, and what a perfect time to welcome native pollinator specialist Neal Williams to the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty.
He's actually no stranger to UC Davis. He's been collaborating with researchers at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility since 2001.
The assistant professor joins us from the Department of Biology, Byrn Mawr College in Byrn Mawr, Pa. Before that he served as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton. You can read all about him here.
From that page, there's a link to a pamphlet that he and Rachael Winfree of Rutgers wrote on the benefits of native bees. You can download it free. Although it's targeted for Pennsylvania and New Jersey farmers, the information is useful nationwide. You'll learn:
- why native bees are important
- how to identify native bees
- their habitat and foraging needs
- strategies for encouraging their presence
- the difference between a "social" bee and a "solitary" bee
- the difference between a "generalist" bee and an "oligolectic" bee
- what "eusocial" means
Most folks think that the common Western honey bee is native to North America. It isn't. English settlers brought Apis mellifera to the American colonies in about 1622, according to the UC Cooperative Extension pamphlet, "Beekeeping in America," published in 1987 by the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources and authored by a group of UC Davis bee specialists headed by Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. The Native Americans referred to the honey bee as "the white man's fly."
By the way, in the Williams-Winfree pamphlet, you'll find a chart indicating that the honey bee's sociality is "eusocial" and its foraging habit is "broad generalist."
And what does "euscocial" mean?
"Eusocial means the species lives in colonies with a reproductive queen and sterile workers who are her daughters," Williams and Winfree write. "All bees in the colony communicate and cooperate in caring for the brood."
Generalists? Generalist bee species "visit a large variety of plants and crops, in contract to 'specialist' bee species, which forage on a restricted group of plants," the authors explain.
It's a good read.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Insects are the most successful animals that have ever existed on Earth and have been around for just over 400 million years," writes George Gavin in Insects, an American Nature Guide published by Smithmark Publishers, N.Y.
"Of the nearly one and a half million described species of all animals, just over 930,000 of them are insects," Gavin points out. "Thousands of new insect species are described every year and recent estimates from work in the world's diminishing rainforests indicate that there are maybe several million undescribed species."
Yes, insects are nearly everywhere--even at California's oldest fair. When the 134th annual Dixon May Fair opens May 7, continuing through May 10, you'll see a honey bee observation hive--with the queen bee, workers and drones--inside the floriculture building. Also in the floriculture building: Madagascar hissing cockroaches, Vietnamese walking sticks and other arthropods.
Honey bee specialists from the UC Davis Department of Entomology and insect experts from the Bohart Museum of Entomology will be there at various times to answer questions.
Elsewhere on the fairgrounds, you'll see insect photography and insect motifs on quilts, aprons, birdbaths, flower pots and other items. Interior Living Showcase superintendent Debee Lamont (who works year-around as gifts and records management specialist in University Relations, UC Davis) says insect images adorn numerous quilts at the fair. Insects include honey bees, butterflies and dragonflies.
Sorry, no quilts with Madagascar hissing cockroaches or Vietnamese walking sticks.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
When the half-acre Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven is implemented by the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at UC Davis later this year, honey bees won't be the only ones enjoying the garden.
Expect to see butterflies, bumblebees and other insects.
Remember the project? Last December Häagen-Dazs ice cream committed $125,000 to the UC Davis Department of Entomology for the bee haven. A Sausalito team-- landscape architects Donald Sibbett and Ann F. Baker, interpretative planner Jessica Brainard and exhibit designer Chika Kurotaki--won the design competition, which drew 30 entries. One was submitted from as far away as England.
The key goals of the garden are to provide bees with a year-around food source, to raise public awareness about the plight of honey bees and to encourage visitors to plant bee-friendly gardens of their own.
We’re all eagerly looking forward to the garden, which will be dedicated in October.
Meanwhile, scientists at the Laidlaw facility plan to examine the diversity of insects already there. One insect we saw there last week was a soapberry bug on a flowering almond tree.
So bees, butterflies, bumblebees and soapberry bugs.
Among others.
Lots of others.
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