No contest, no winner, no beer?

But he'll have a beer anyway!

UC Davis distinguished professor Art Shapiro, Department of Evolution and Ecology, didn't sponsor his annual public "Beer for a Butterfly" contest this year but he recorded his first-of-the-year sighting of a cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae,  at 1:25 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 19 in West Sacramento near a railroad embankment.

"Pop Goes the Pieris!" Shapiro emailed to his colleagues.

And it was exactly the day that his colleague-collaborator Matt Forister, the Trevor McMinn Endowed Professor in Biology, Foundation Professor, at the University of Nevada, calculated it would be sighted. 

Forister, who received his doctorate in ecology in 2004 at UC Davis, studying with Shapiro, crafts "The First Flight Date" graphics, using Shapiro's statistics.  "And.... as if we had coordinated efforts (which we didn't), here's the graph!" Forister wrote in an email. "Art, you nailed it right on the regression line this time, you deserve an extra beer."

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, says that since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

For scientific purposes, Shapiro seeks the first cabbage-white-butterfly-of-the year in the three-county area of Yolo, Sacramento and Solano. The contest is also known as "Suds for Bugs." The traditional rules: Catch a live cabbage white butterfly in the wild in one of those three counties, deliver it live to his department in Storer Hall, UC Davis (with the full data, exact time, date and location of the capture) and if it's the first of the year, the winner receives a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. 

Due to COVID-19 pandemic precautions, however,  Shapiro hasn't sponsored the contest for two years. But he's recorded the first ones he's seen.

In his Jan. 19th email documenting the sighting, Shapiro wrote:

"Today was a gorgeous day in West Sacramento--no high or middle clouds for the first time in seemingly forever. The site has the heaviest midwinter Crucifer bloom in many years. In order of abundance: Brassica kaber (wild mustard), Raphanus (wild radish), and B. campestris (field mustard). Also in bloom: Amsinckia (fiddlenecks) and a few Erodium (filaree) and (Lamium amplexicaule) giraffe heads. It looks like late February or even March. The twigs on almond are coloring up. No other tree action noted yet!  61F, N wind 5-10 mph but blocked by the RR embankment. It felt quite warm on the sheltered lee side, but in the open, exposed to the wind, it didn't.

"At 1:25  p.m., I encountered a male rapae dorsal-basking; it took flight at once. Since there is no contest again this year I had no net and there is no specimen. But there we are..." (He also saw a Vanessa atalanta or red admiral butterfly, "so 2 species, 2 bugs," he wrote.)

P. rapae inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro says. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

Shapiro usually wins his own contest as he knows where to find them. Over the last five years, the contest statistics include:

• 2022, Jan. 19: Art Shapiro collected his first of the year at 1:25 p.m. in West Sacramento (no contest held due to COVID precautions)
• 2021, Jan. 16: Shapiro collected his first of the year at 1:55 p.m. Jan. 16 on the UC Davis campus, Yolo County (no contest held, due to COVID precautions)
• 2020, Jan. 30: Shapiro recorded his first of the year at 11:16 a.m. on Jan. 30 in Winters (he didn't net the butterfly so he said "no winner")
• 2019, Jan. 25: Shapiro collected the winner at 1:12 p.m., Jan. 25 near the Suisun Yacht Club, Solano County.
• 2018, Jan. 19: Shapiro collected the winner at 11:23 a.m. Friday, Jan. 19 West Sacramento, Yolo County

Since 2010, most of the winning butterflies were collected in West Sacramento:

• 2017: Jan. 19: Shapiro collected the winner on the UC Davis campus
• 2016: Jan. 16: Jacob Montgomery, UC Davis graduate student, collected the winner in west Davis
• 2015: Jan. 26: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2014: Jan. 14: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2013: Jan. 21: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2012: Jan. 8:  Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento
• 2011: Jan. 31: Shapiro collected the winner in Suisun
• 2010: Jan. 27: Shapiro collected the winner in West Sacramento

The butterfly is emerging earlier and earlier as the regional climate has warmed, says Shapiro, whose researches involves  biological responses to climate change. "The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here."

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on transects across central California since 1972 and records the information on his research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/.  His 10 sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin. The largest and oldest database in North America, it was recently cited by British conservation biologist Chris Thomas in a worldwide study of insect biomass.

In its larval form, the cabbage white butterfly, known as "the imported cabbageworm," is a pest of cole crops. "Cabbageworm larvae chew large, irregular holes in leaves, bore into heads, and drop greenish brown fecal pellets that may contaminate the marketed product," according to the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program. "Seedlings may be damaged, but most losses are due to damage to marketed parts of the plant."

There may not be a UC Davis "Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest" or "Suds for a Bug" in 2022.

The COVID-19 pandemic precautions and/or lockdown may interfere with it.

"As of now, no," says contest sponsor Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology, who launched the competition in 1972.

Remember the contest? 

For scientific purposes, the UC Davis professor seeks to determine the cabbage white butterfly's first flight of the year in the three-county area of Sacramento, Solano and Yolo.

The traditional rules: Catch a live cabbage white butterfly, Pieris rapae, in the wild in one of those three counties, deliver it live to his department office, 2320 Storer Hall, UC Davis (during work hours, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday, with the full data, exact time, date and location of the capture) and if it's the first of the year, you win a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. 

Shapiro, who maintains a research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu, says that since 1972, the first flight has varied from Jan. 1 to Feb. 22, averaging about Jan. 20.

The butterfly inhabits vacant lots, fields and gardens where its host plants, weedy mustards, grow. The male is white. The female is often slightly buffy; the "underside of the hindwing and apex of the forewing may be distinctly yellow and normally have a gray cast,” Shapiro says. “The black dots and apical spot on the upperside tend to be faint or even to disappear really early in the season.”

Shapiro or his graduate students have often won the contest.

Shapiro has monitored butterfly population trends on a transect across central California since 1972 and records the information on his research website at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/.  His 10 sites stretch from the Sacramento River Delta through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains to the high desert of the Western Great Basin. The largest and oldest database in North America, it was recently cited by British conservation biologist Chris Thomas in a worldwide study of insect biomass.

Shapiro, a member of the UC Davis faculty since 1971 and author of the book, Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay Area and Sacramento Valley Regions, has studied more than 160 species of butterflies in his transect. 

So suds for a bug in 2022? Well, maybe you can welcome in the New Year with suds...without a bug...

Honey bees, mosquitoes, cabbage butterflies, fruit flies and more...

You'll hear about a variety of insects when the international symposium, “Insect Olfaction and Taste in 24 Hours Around the Globe,” takes place beginning at 9 a.m., Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), Wednesday, Aug. 11. 

The 24-hour Zoom symposium has already drawn more than 1100 registrants from 66 countries, according to UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal, one of the three co-hosts. It's free and open to all interested persons. You can register at https://bit.ly/3k68c2m. 

The speakers will focus on a wide variety of insects, including three species of mosquitoes (Culex, Aedes and Anopheles); honey bee (Apis mellifera); fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster, Drosophila sechellia, and Drosophila suzukii); sand flies (the blood-sucking dipteran flies); cotton bollworm (Helicoverpa armigera); housefly (Musca domestica); cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapae); and the American cockroach (Periplaneta americana). 

The event will cover such topics as why mosquitoes are so persistent; the origins of insect olfaction; bitter perspectives (and insect taste); and novelty detection in the early olfactory processing of the honey bee. 

“We will have 15 invited (keynote) and 36 contribution presentations,” said Leal, who will host the PDT segment. One of the interviews will feature olfaction research pioneer Karl-Ernst Kaissling of Germany. 

Co-hosts with Leal are Wynand van der Goes van Naters of Cardiff University, UK, who will host the British Summer Time (BST) segment; and Coral Warr of La Trobe University, Australia (formerly of the University of Tasmania), host of the Australia Eastern Standard Time (AEST) segment.  The trio, along with Karen Menuz (PDT), Wei Xu (AEST), and Emmanuelle Jacquin-Joly (BST), will moderate the symposium. 

The speakers include icons in the field as well as graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, early career professionals, and under-represented minorities. Of  the 15 keynote lectures, seven will be delivered by woman scientists.  

“The attendees will be engaged by questions and answers,” announced Leal, a UC Davis distinguished professor with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology). “We will give priority to questions from students, postdocs, and early career professionals, but will attempt to address everyone's questions. Attendees can ask anonymous questions.” Many of the attendees would not otherwise have an opportunity to travel to an international symposium, he added. 

The first segment--the PDT segment hosted by Leal--begins with a welcoming address by John Hildebrand of the University of Arizona, Foreign Secretary of the National Academy of Sciences. Presentations by Josefina del Marmol of The Rockefeller University, New York,  and Jon Clardy of Harvard Medical School will follow.  “There will be four keynote lectures and 10 contributed presentations,” Leal said.  

The last presentation in this segment, by Ke Dong of Duke University, will bridge with the AEST segment, hosted by Warr. It will include two keynote lectures and 14 contributed presentations. Then, a keynote lecture by Richard Benton of the University of Laussanne will bridge with the BST segment, hosted by van der Goes van Naters.  It will include six keynote lectures and 12 contributed presentations. After the last lecture by John Pickett of Cardiff University) the symposium returns to UC Davis for closing remarks. 

One of the keynote speakers in the PDT segment is Zain Syed of the University of Kentucky, a former postdoctoral researcher in the Leal lab at UC Davis.

For a list of the keynote speakers, those who will give presentations, and other logistics, see the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website.

The registrants hail from 66 countries: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Hungary, India, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kenya, South Korea, Lebanon,  Mexico, Mozambique, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, Peru, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Réunion, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania,  Cayman Islands,  Czech Republic, The Netherlands, The Philippines,  United Kingdom,  United States, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

For updates, videos and more information, follow Leal on Twitter at @wsleal2014.

So here we have two cabbage white butterflies, a male and a female, fluttering around the catmint (Nepata) and lavender (Lavendula) in our pollinator garden.

Throughout the year, we haven't been seeing this species, Pieris rapae, much--and neither has Art Shapiro, UC Davis distinguished professor of evolution and ecology who has been monitoring all the butterfly populations of the Central Valley since 1972.  Usually, cabbage whites are quite prevalent. (See his research website.) As you may remember, he sponsors the annual "Beer-for-a-Butterfly Contest." The first person to collect the first cabbage white of the year--in Yolo, Sacramento or Solano counties--receives a pitcher of beer or its equivalent. It's all for scientific research; he's studying the first flights of this species. 

But back to the two cabbage whites fluttering in our garden. One seemed quite interested in the other. A suitor?

In one image (below), they both raised their abdomens. 

They were exhibiting typical courtship behavior, Shapiro said. "The male, at right, is scattering pheromone on the female, who by raising her abdomen indicates she isn't interested. This is known in the trade as 'tail in the air.'"

The cabbage white butterfly is also known as the European cabbage butterfly. Shapiro provides interesting information on his website about this species:

"Our only introduced butterfly--from the Old World--this is also one of our weediest, occurring in disturbed habitats from sea level to about 8000.' It even invades riparian woodland and montane coniferous forest habitats in summer. We are not certain how or when it reached our area. We know the species was introduced in southern Canada in the 1850s; the great Lepidopterist Samuel H. Scudder traced its spread, but was unable to resolve the history on the West Coast. It was not in San Francisco in the early 1880s, but was abundant by the time of the earthquake (1906). There is a mysterious specimen sent by the early collector Lorquin to Tryon Reakirt in Philadelphia, which may have been collected at Yreka in Gold Rush days. Was there an early introduction by the Spanish during the Mission Period?"

"In a typical year, after overwinter mortality, numbers of this species rise rapidly to a peak in late spring, exploiting almost unlimited quantities of host plants (weedy mustards). Then all the annual hosts (Brassica and Raphanus) die off by the 4th of July, and the butterfly is forced to contract down to local pockets of hosts that remain green in summer--cultivated Crucifers and Nasturtiums, the perennial mustard Hirschfeldia incana, and the aggressive weed Tall White-Top or Perennial Peppergrass, Lepidium latifolium. This last plant has invaded the western Great Basin, producing virtual monocultures along the Truckee River and other watercourses, and spreading the butterfly into areas where it had been rare or absent not so long ago."

Agriculturists probably wish the cabbage white butterflies would be more absent, as the larvae, known as "imported cabbageworms," are pests of crucifer crops such as cabbage, kale, bok choy and broccoli. (See the Pest Management Guidelines on the UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management website.)

As for the two in our garden this week, the female lingered for a little more nectar.  The male butterfly fluttered silently away. 

Rejection.  Rejection in the butterfly world.