- 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
Congratulations to UC Davis doctoral students Shawn Christensen, Lexie Martin and Iris Quayle!
They each won the President's Prize (first-place) for their graduate student research presentations this week at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting in National Harbor, Md.
That's quite a feat and well-deserved! From bees to beetles...
Shawn and Lexie are members of the lab of associate professor and community ecologist Rachel Vannette, who serves as vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology. Iris studies with professor and arachnologist Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair in Insect Systematics for the department, and associate dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Shawn competed in the Plant-Insect Ecosystems (P-IE) Section, Apiculture; Lexie in the P-IE Section, Pollinator Biology; and Iris in Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity (SysEB) Section, Biogeography.
Shawn, who has advanced from doctoral student to doctoral candidate, presented his research, titled "Bee Specific! Solitary Bee (Anthophora bomboides) Hosts a Specialized Core Microbiome through Development." Lexie delivered her presentation on "Establishment and Health Impacts of Floral and Intraspecific Microbes in Bees." And Iris? “Colorless but Never Dull: Unraveling Population Genetics and Color Evolution in ‘White' Darkling Beetles (Onymacris).” (See news story)
Iris earlier won first-place for her graduate student presentation at the annual meeting of the Pacific Branch of ESA (PBESA), held in April in Seattle. This was her first-ever presentation at a scientific meeting. “Iris has hit the ground running in all respects," Professor Bond commented at the time. "Winning the student paper award, the first time ever presenting her research, reflects her exceptional capabilities as a scientist and as a future professor and teacher. Iris comes from a non-traditional STEM background and it is exactly those experiences that will continue to contribute to her success as she evolves as a scientist. I predict that this is only a prelude of things to come.”
Iris is focusing her dissertation on the evolutionary relationships and color/trait evolution in Onymacris. Tenebrionidae (darkling beetles) comprise “more than 80 percent of all known beetle species in the Namib desert (Southern Africa) where the genus Onymacris contains a rarity unexpected from aptly named darkling beetles--the presence of several species with striking ‘white' elytra (wing sheaths).” (See news story)
The complete list of student winners--first, second and third places--is posted on the ESA site.
Founded in 1889, ESA is the largest entomological organization in the world. Its more than 7,000 members are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government.
- 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
Here's the Davis Botanical Society version: "How I Spent My Field Season." Two student grant recipients will present their field research at a Zoom meeting on Thursday, Nov. 19.
The meeting, open to all interested persons, begins at 5 p.m. The student presentations are scheduled from 5:10 to 6:10 p.m. Follow this Zoom link to be connected to the Zoom presentation: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/98395098782
Speakers are scientists:
- Shawn Christensen, a doctoral student in the Microbiology Graduate Group, discussing "Nectar Microbes Induce Pollen Germination to Access Scarce Nutrients"
- Maxwell "Max" Odland, who received his master's degree in June 2020, discussing "Using Prescribed Fire and Thinning to Restore Understory Plant Communities in Sierra Nevada Mixed Conifer Forests."
Shawn, a member of the lab of community ecologist Rachel Vannette of the UC Davis Department of the Entomology and Nematology since January, anticipates being awarded a doctorate in 2023 or 2024. Says Shawn: "The pandemic is not helping me out there!"
Shawn, who holds a bachelor of science degree in evolutionary biology from University of Wisconsin-Madison, studied "reducing ecological impacts of phosphorus runoff, ethnobotany and domestication traits in Brassica rapa, botanical field excursions of all kinds, and the evolution of chemical sets in the early origins of life."
Max, who received his master's degree in June 2020, was a former member of Ecology Graduate Group and affiliated with the John Muir Institute for the Environment. He is currently the forest resilence program manager at the California Association of Resource Conservation District
While a student at UC Davis, Max was specifically interested "in the effects of prescribed fire and thinning on diversity in fire-dependent western forests. Specifically, how do the differing disturbances that result from different combinations of management actions affect diversity in understory plant communities fine-scale environmental heterogeneity in mixed-conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada?"
For further information on the Zoom meeting, contact Herbarium assistant curator Jennifer Poore at jpoore@ucdavis.edu.