- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Quick! What's the answer to this question?
"I am a blood feeder; I have no hair but have a comb. What am I?"
That was the final question posed when the University of California, Davis competed Monday night with the University of Hawai-Manoa team for the championship of the Linnaean Games, Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America (PBESA).
The Linaean Games are college bowl-type games featuring questions about insects, entomologists and entomological facts. Each branch of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) can send two teams to the nationals. This year ESA meets in Reno Nov. 13-16.
So, UC Davis and the University of Hawaii are in a dead heat at the PBESA meeting in Hawaii. Tied game. Buzzers ready. And then comes that final question. "What am I?"
"A flea," Emily Symmes of the UC Davis team correctly answers.
Yes, a flea! A flea, indeed.
Emily Symmes, who is studying for her doctorate with major professor Frank Zalom, joined the winners' circle with her fellow teammates who also did equally well: Matan Shelomi, studying for his doctorate with major profesor Lynn Kimsey; Meredith Cenzer, studying for her doctorate with major professor Louie Yang; and James Harwood, studying for his doctorate with major professor James R. Carey.
Winning at the branch level is indeed an accomplishment, as well as a fun endeavor. The PBESA encompasses 11 U.S. states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming); several U.S. territories, including American Samoa, Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands; and parts of Canada and Mexico.
If you've never been to any of the Linnaean Games, you can see videos online by Googling "Linnaean Games." See if you can answer those questions.
Might be another question about fleas in there, too.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
If you've ever wondered about the relationship between predator biodiversity and herbivore suppression, that subject is on tap Wednesday, Jan. 27 at UC Davis.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology will host associate professor William Snyder (right) of the Department of Entomology, Washington State University, at a noon seminar in 122 Briggs Hall, Kleiber Drive.
The seminar is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. and will be Webcast. Folks can tune in, listen, and ask questions. Graduate students James Harwood and Amy Morice of the James Carey lab will be Webcasting the lecture. Here's the link to listen to the Webcast.
Snyder, who received his doctorate in entomology from the University of Kentucky in 1999, focuses his research on the relationship between biodiversity and biological control; community ecology; predator-prey interactions; and sustainable agriculture.
Snyder shares this abstract:
Classic ecological theory suggests that species must differ in their resource use patterns in order to co-exist. Although much recent empirical work has shown that resource use generally increases with greater species diversity, it has nonetheless proven difficult to demonstrate that resource partitioning truly underlies this pattern. Progress has been limited by the fact that differences among species in resource use typically are confounded with other species-specific attributes (size, metabolic rate, fecundity, etc.). In the first study I will discuss, we overcame this obstacle by co-opting plasticity in host choice among a community of aphid parasitoids, in order to manipulate the breadth of resource use independent of parasitoid species identity and diversity. We found that aphid suppression improved with greater specialist, but not generalist, parasitoid diversity. Thus, it was resource partitioning among species that fostered greater resource consumption in multi-species communities. I will then discuss results from several other natural enemy communities we have been studying, where resource partitioning among predator and/or pathogen species again appears to underlie stronger herbivore suppression at higher diversity levels.
Snyder's lecture is the fourth in a series of seminars that began Jan. 6 and will continue on Wednesdays through March 10. See the remainder of the seminar schedule. The seminars are archived.