- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Free and family friendly, the open house takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.
"It should be a great event!” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator. “There is a lot of interest in bees this time of year. The format will be tabling with direct conversations with visitors.” The event is free and family friendly. Parking is also free.
Among those participating will be the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
"At the Vannette Lab booth, you will be able to look into the life of a bee--both in terms of where they live and how they develop!" said doctoral candidate and researcher Lexie Martin. "A live bumble bee nest and solitary bee nests will be available, so you can peer inside a bee's house! Additionally, there will be live bee larvae to observe under a microscope and interactive displays on the bee life cycle."
Vannette describes her lab as "a team of entomologists, microbiologists, chemical ecologists, and community ecologists trying to understand how microbial communities affect plants and insects (sometimes other organisms too). We often study microbial communities in flowers, on insects or in soil. We rely on natural history observations, and use techniques from chemical ecology, microbial ecology and community ecology."
Vannette's lab members participating at the open house will include:
Lexie Martin, doctoral candidate in the Entomology Graduate Group. She is interested in the impact of microbes on bee health
Dino Sbardellati, doctoral student in the Microbiology Graduate Group. He is a microbiologist interested in understanding how microbial ecology shapes macroscale ecology
Leta Landucci, a junior specialist and biochemist. She is inspired by chemical ecology, and broadly interested in exploring chemically mediated plant-insect-microbe interactions
Others scheduled to participate are Bohart Museum scientists and bee specialists Thomas Zavortink and Sandy Shanks; doctoral student Sofía Meléndez Cartagena of the Stacey Combes lab, Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior (she will focus on local bee diversity); Chancellor's Fellow Santiago Ramirez, associate professor, Department of Evolution and Ecology, who studies orchid bees; doctoral student Peter Coggan of the Ramirez lab (Coggan studies the neurological and genetic basis of orchid bee courtship behavior and evolution); and Richard Martinez, entomology graduate student researcher in the lab of apiculturist Elina Niño,associate professor of Cooperative Extension, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Martinez says that the E.L Niño Lab booth will display an observation hive and offer honey tasting from a variety of floral sources. He will be sharing recent projects aimed at improving honey bee health via dietary supplements. He also plans to showcase beekeeping suits and hive tools.
UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, who directed the Bohart Museum for 34 years, is also scheduled to participate. She is known as "wasp woman," but she did her dissertation on orchid bees in Panama.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of eight million insects, plus a live petting zoo, and a gift shop. Professor Jason Bond directs the museum as of Feb. 1, succeeding UC Davis distinguished professor emerita Lynn Kimsey, who served 34 years. Bond is the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. He also serves as president-elect of the American Arachnological Society.
For more information, access the website at https://bohart.ucdavis.edu or contact bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A member of the Microbiology Graduate Group and the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor and vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology, he will deliver the Merton Love seminar from 3 to 4:30 p.m., Friday, May 24 in Room 1230 of Walker Hall. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99429777483.
The award memorializes Robert Merton Love (1909-1994), emeritus professor of agronomy and range science, who served on the UC Davis faculty from 1940-1976.
“Shawn's thesis work spans microbiology, ecology and evolutionary biology, combined with careful natural history, to document novel species interactions between hosts and microbial communities,” said Vannette, who nominated him for the award. “Each chapter has broad implications for the ecology and evolution of host-microbe interactions. Shawn's work has already reframed the conditions under insect-microbe interactions are thought to hold relevance and evolve. His research has highlighted the utility of natural history observations of microbes and sampling understudied life history stages (overwintering developing insects).”
“Overall, Shawn's dissertation is an example of how detailed observations combined with fearless experimental dissection of interesting phenotypes can yield novel descriptions of species interactions that change the field's perception of when and where microbial communities are important,” she said.
“Shawn's first chapter describes adaptations of a flower specialist bacteria to acquiring resources from pollen—a nutrient source specific to flowers,” Vannette said. “Our lab was interested in the ecology of the flower-dwelling bacteria Acinetobacter, but Shawn took a new look at this bacterium, examining its growth morphology in nectar and in association with pollen. He noticed that this bacterium co-localized with pollen and grew exponentially more in the presence of pollen. To explore this phenotype, he designed new media and assays (microwaving pollen) to determine that Acinetobacter benefits the most from live pollen via stimulating pollen to germinate (within minutes!), then digesting it. Shawn then designed a series of experiments to examine if this ability was unique to this bacterial clade or shared among many floral microbes (it seems to be specific to Acinetobacter).”
“He collected brood cells (nectar and pollen balls along with developing larvae) from these locations at multiple points through bee development and examined not only the bacteria and fungal community composition through insect development, but also examined changes in microbial abundance at each life stage,” Vannette said. “In contrast to my (and the literature's) predictions, Shawn showed that microbial abundance peaks during larval overwintering, when solitary bees and other holometabolous insects are predicted to have voided their microbial gut communities. Instead, healthy A. bomboides hosts the highest abundance of fungi and bacteria during the fall—a wet season where pathogen abundance is also highest.”
Christensen received accolades and widespread media coverage for the first chapter of his dissertation, “Nectar Bacteria Stimulate Pollen Germination and Bursting to Enhance Microbial Fitness,” published in July 2021 in Current Biology. His second thesis chapter on the microbes associated with Anthophora bomboides, has just been accepted for publication by the International Society of Microbial Ecology (ISME).
And more good news: Christensen is a" co-principal investigator on a newly awarded grant by JGI to sequence the genome of the yeast," Vannette said, "and explore its functional potential in renewable energy and is applying to continue to leverage this system's potential in antifungal chemistry and evolution of pathogen defense.”
Every time we see the nests of Anthophora bomboides stanfordiana on the sand cliffs at Bodega Head, we think of the scientists, including Shawn Christensen and Rachel Vannette, who study them. The late Robbin Thorp, UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, researched them decades ago.
Check out PBS' Deep Look video, "This Bee Builds Sandcastles at the Beach," and you'll never go to Bodega Bay without thinking of these digger bees.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So when we viewed KQED's Deep Look video, “This Fly Torpedoes a Bindweed Bee's Nest,” on YouTube at https://youtu.be/gJHCoP4WqMc, we were totally amazed. It's nothing short of spectacular.
The crew filmed the bees in a nesting area outside the UC Davis Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve, near Winters.
UC Davis scientists Shawn Christensen, a fifth-year doctoral candidate in the laboratory of community ecologist Rachel Vannette, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, were among those collaborating with the Deep Look production.
“Shawn has done a lot of work on this bee and with Deep Look, and he also leads our lab's work on Anthophora bomboides, a bumble bee mimic, and studies microbial associates of pollen and solitary bees,” said community ecologist and associate professor Rachel Vannette, a Chancellor's Fellow and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The bees, also known as digger bees or chimney bees, are specialists on bindweed, commonly known as morning glory. “The females use pollen only from one plant species and are active through the late spring and early summer,” said Vannette, an international leader in microbial ecology who studies interactions between plants, insects and microbes.
Native to California, the bindweed turret bees dig underground nests, many with structures called turrets at the nest entrance. They provision the nests with pollen for their future offspring, and then lay their eggs inside.
Quirós also consulted with seven other scientists: Stephen Buchmann, University of Arizona; Andy Calderwood, Ventura County Deputy Agricultural Commissioner; Neal Evenhuis, Bishop Museum of Honolulu, Hawaii; Paul Havemann, UC Davis Natural Reserve System; Keng-Lou James Hung, University of Oklahoma; Doug Yanega, UC Riverside, and James Carey, a naturalist who researches and videos bindweed turret bees in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreational Area.
Josh Cassidy, the lead producer and cinematographer, filmed all the footage except for the male bees fighting with each other (00;17;14- 00;25;22 in the video). James Carey, who filmed that incredible footage, “has been regularly monitoring and filming bindweed turret bees since 2016 in Rancho Sierra Vista/Satwiwa, an open space in the Santa Monica Mountains,” Quirós said. “James also filmed the shot at 04;17-04;21 showing nests in the Santa Monica Mountains covered up at the end of the nesting season."
Christensen, a member of the UC Davis Microbiology Graduate Group and anticipating his doctorate in the spring of 2024, is an evolutionary biologist turned microbiologist. Christensen also researches other native bees, including Melissodes and Colletes.
Vannette focuses her research on the chemical and microbial ecology of plant-pollinator interactions and how microbes influence plant defense and resistance against insect pests. On its website, the Vannette lab is described as "a team of entomologists, microbiologists, chemical ecologists, and community ecologists trying to understand how microbial communities affect plants and insects--sometimes other organisms, too. We often study microbial communities in flowers, on insects or in soil. We rely on natural history observations, and use techniques from chemical ecology, microbial ecology and community ecology. In some cases, we study applied problems with an immediate application including pathogen control or how to support pollinators.”
We're looking forward to more research from the Vannette lab, including their work on Anthophora bomboides, a bumble bee mimic that forms turrets in sand dunes (including the sand cliffs at Bodega Head).
Most people are unaware that there are more than 20,000 known bee species in the world, and 4,000 of them are native to the United States. Of the 20,000 known bee species, 70 percent are ground-nesting bees. California alone is home to more than 1600 species.
And just one of those species is the bindweed turret bee, Diadasia bituberculata, that forages on morning glories. Glory bee...
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ponisio, who grew up in Fresno and holds degrees from Stanford University and UC Berkeley, is an assistant professor of biology at the University of Oregon who seeks to preserve and restore populations of bees and other pollinators.
Her seminar, both in-person and virtual, is sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 8 in 122 Briggs Hall. Host is community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"Infectious disease prevalence is among the top five drivers of global extinction, including in wild bees," Ponisio says in her abstract. "With the global decline of wild bees, our work aims to contribute to understanding how community characteristics shape infectious disease prevalence in plant-pollinator communities. Infectious parasites can influence host immunity, physiology, and reproduction. The sharing of floral resources is a common mode of disease transmission among pollinators."
"Increasing host aggregation on floral resources can increase disease prevalence, that is, amplification," Ponisio noted. "Conversely, high host species diversity---even if accompanied by host aggregation---may dilute infection. Because bees pick up parasites from flowers, but not all flowers transmit parasites equally, flower abundance and diversity may further contribute to parasite dilution. In three systems, mass-blooming sunflower in Yolo County, CA, harvested forests in Coast Range, OR, and high elevation meadows across the Southwestern U.S., I examine how the factors that shape plant-pollinator abundance and diversity and the ramifications for parasite prevalence in wild bee communities. Across all systems, more than 40% of bees have at one parasite. Both natural (phenology) and human-induced (years post-harvest, mass-blooming crops) modification of the bee and floral communities indirectly affected parasitism by altering host community characteristics. I found a consistent amplification effect of host (bee) abundance and detected dilution through either host diversity or floral diversity in each system."
On her website, Ponisio elaborates: "We focus on understanding the mechanisms by which species interactions maintain species diversity, and how we can harness these processes to manage and restore diversity in human-modified systems. We focus on pollinators because they are critical for pollination in managed and natural plant communities, but our research is broadly applicable across ecological interactions. Our aim to discover new insights into how communities form, evolve, and persist through time and space, aiding in the prediction and prevention of community collapse. We combine modeling, synthesis and field-based work, and adhere to the principles of reproducible, open science."
Lauren holds two degrees from Stanford: a bachelor's degree in biology, with honors, in ecology and evolution (2010) and her master's degree in biology (2011). She received her doctorate from the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, in 2016.
Ponisio conducted postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and served on the faculty at UC Riverside before accepting her current position. She received graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship from the Berkeley Institute for Data Science. She was named among the Global Food Initiative's “30 Under 30” in Food Systems in 2016.
Food Gone. Ponisio says one of her most difficult field work experiences occurred in Yosemite National Park, according to her People Behind the Science podcast. "Their study on the effects of fires on pollinators required them to backpack out to remote sites where there had been natural fires. Lauren started working months ahead of time to get ready for the trip and prepare dehydrated meals for the lab to eat. One day, they opened the large canister where they had been storing their food to protect it from bears, and they discovered the food was gone. All that was left was a handwritten note from someone thanking them for leaving out food."
"The next day, the lab's field assistant tripped over a log and sprained her ankle. Then they accidentally left their sampling gear at a site and had to hike all the way back to retrieve it. Later, a bear came into their campsite and destroyed many of the traps they needed to collect pollinators for their study. At this point, Lauren and her colleagues were exhausted, surviving on snacks, their field assistant could barely walk, and much of the equipment they needed had been destroyed. In the face of all of these challenges, Lauren stayed calm. These kinds of things happen in field research, and everyone made it back to share the story."
Ponisio was featured on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in January of 2021 when she discussed "Wildfires Open Forests for Wildlife and Research."
Ponisio is the lead author of a recently submitted journal paper, "Mass-Flowering Crops Attract Bees, Amplifying Parasitism," co-authored by G. P. Smith, H. Sardinas, J. Zorn, Q. S. McFrederick and S. H.Woodard. (See CV)
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. All are virtual. They are coordinated by urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
With the Entomological Society of America (ESA), however, being framed is a good thing. No, a great thing!
ESA honors its President's Prize winners (aka first-place winners) in the student research competitions by asking them to step behind a cardboard cut-out and smile for the camera. Voila! Suitable for framing!
Joe Rominiecki, ESA manager of communications, just announced that the images are now available and we have permission to share them.
We earlier wrote that doctoral candidates Danielle Rutkowski and Zachary Griebenow of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology each won the President's Prize for their individual research presentations at the 2022 Joint Meeting of the Entomological Societies of America, Canada, and British Columbia, held Nov. 13-16 in Vancouver, British Columbia.
And now, we have the images.
Background: At the annual ESA meetings, students are offered the opportunity to present their research and win prizes. They can compete in 10-minute papers (oral), posters, or infographics. The President's Prize winners receive a one-year paid membership in ESA, a $75 cash prize, and a certificate. Second-winners score a one-year free membership in ESA and a certificate.
Rutkowski, who studies with community ecologists Rachel Vannette, associate professor, and distinguished professor Richard “Rick” Karban, spoke on “The Mechanism Behind Beneficial Effects of Bee-Associated Fungi on Bumble Bee Health,” at her presentation in the category, Graduate School Plant-Insect Ecosytems: Pollinators.
Her abstract: "Bees often interact with fungi, including at flowers and within bee nests. We have previously found that supplementing bumble bee colonies with these bee-associated fungi improves bee survival and increases reproductive output, but the mechanisms behind these effects are unclear. This research aimed to determine the mechanisms underlying positive impacts of fungal supplementation in the bumble bee, Bombus impatiens. We tested two hypotheses regarding possible nutritional benefits provided by bee-associated fungi. These included the role of fungi as a direct food source to bees, and the production of nutritionally important metabolites by fungi. To test these mechanisms, we created microcolonies bumble bees and exposed each microcolony to one of four treatment groups. These four treatments were created based on the presence of fungal cells and the presence of fungal metabolites. We found that bee survival and reproduction were unaffected by treatment, with trends of decreased survival and reproduction when fungi were present. This contradicts previous results we've found using this bumble bee species, where fungi had a positive impact. It is possible that this disparity in results is due to differences in pathogen pressure between the two experiments, as bees in the first experiment were exposed to large amounts of pathogen through provided pollen, including Ascosphaera and Aspergillus. This pollen was sterilized for subsequent experiments, reducing pathogen load. Therefore, it is possible that bee-associated fungi benefit bees through pathogen inhibition, and future work exploring this hypothesis is necessary to fully understand the role of these fungi in bumble bee health."
Zachary Griebenow. Griebenow, who studies with major professor and ant specialist Phil Ward, (Griebenow also captained the UC Davis Entomology Games Team in its national championship win at the Entomology Games or Bug Bowl) explained “Systematic Revision of the Obscure Ant Subfamily Leptanillinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Reciprocally Informed by Phylogenomic Inference and Morphological Data.” His category: Graduate School Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity: Evolution 1.
His abstract: "Ants belonging to the subfamily Leptanillinae (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) are sister to nearly all other extant ants. Miniscule and subterranean, little is known of their behavior. Contrary to the collecting bias observed in most ants, male leptanilline specimens are acquired more easily than workers or queens. The sexes are almost never collected in association, and many subclades within the Leptanillinae are known from male specimens only. Our comprehension of evolutionary relationships among the Leptanillinae is further obstructed by oft-bizarre derivation in male phenotypes that are too disparate for phylogeny to be intuited from morphology alone. These restrictions plague our understanding of the Leptanillinae with probable taxonomic redundancy. My thesis aims at leptanilline taxonomy that reflects phylogeny, inferred from both genotype and phenotype, and integrates morphological data from both sexes. Here I present the results of (1) phylogenomic inference from ultra-conserved elements (UCEs), compensating for potential systematic biases in these data, representing 63 terminals; and (2) Bayesian total-evidence inferences from a handful of loci, jointly with discrete male morphological characters coded in binary non-additive or multistate fashion. Notably, these analyses identify worker specimens belonging to the genera Noonilla and Yavnella, which were heretofore known only from males. Given such discoveries across the Leptanillinae, the number of valid leptanilline genera is reduced from seven to three in order to create a genus-level classification that upholds monophyly along with diagnostic utility."
We also salute our second-place winners (see previous news story:
- Lindsey Mack, who studies with medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, covered “Three Dimensional Analysis of Vitellogenesis in Aedes aegypi Using Synchrotron X-Ray MicroCT” in the category, Graduate School Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology: Physiology
- Addie Abrams, who studies with Extension agricultural entomologist and assistant professor Ian Grettenberger, titled her research, “Hitting the Mark: Precision Pesticide Applications for the Control of Aphids in California Lettuce" in the category, Graduate School Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology: Integrated Pest Management
Congrats, all! They do our department and our university proud!
(The 7000-member ESA, founded in 1889, is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and individuals in related disciplines. Its members, affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government, are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.)