- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
So said conservation and plant-pollinator biologist Shalene Jha of the University of Texas, Austin, when she discussed "The Secret Life of Tiny Bees" with Science Friday host Ira Flatow of National Public Radio on Nov. 10, 2017.
Most solitary bees live underground, she told him. "So they nest under the soil. We also have a lot of bees that nest in stems of trees or in rotting logs. So there's a lot of diversity in where these bees live, and also the kind of social versus solitary lifestyle they maintain."
Fast-forward to Wednesday, Feb. 3 when Jha will speak on "Plant-Insect Interactions and Ecosystem Services in the Context of Global Change" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's virtual seminar. The hour-long seminar begins at 4:10 p.m. Access this Google form to connect to Zoom.
"I'll be presenting an overview of work that integrates community ecology, foraging biology, and populationgenomics to understand ecosystem function, with an emphasis on mutualistic interactions between plants and pollinators," said Jha, an associate professor in the UT's Department of Integrative Biology. "I'll also explore the impacts of human land use on these species interactions and their connection to a variety of ecosystem services."
Jha investigates "ecological and evolutionary processes from genes to landscapes, to quantify global change impacts on plant-animal interactions, movement ecology, and the provisioning of ecosystem services." Specializing in the fields of landscape genetics, population ecology, and foraging ecology, she examines how landscape composition influences gene flow processes, foraging patterns, and population viability for plants and animals. (See Jha lab)
"Our work," she writes on her website, "has provided insight into the environmental drivers of pollinator diversity, has revealed the complex and dynamic nature of wild pollinator foraging, and has exposed critical urbanization and elevation barriers to plant and pollinator gene flow across historic and contemporary time periods."
Jha joined the University of Texas faculty in 2011. She previously served at UC Berkeley as a UC President's Postdoctoral Fellow, Environmental Science, Policy and Management, from 2009 to 2011. Prior, she worked as a graduate research and teaching assistant in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Shalene Jha
Jha holds a bachelor of science degree in biology from Rice University, magna cum laude, 2004. She obtained her doctorate from the University of Michigan in 2009, where she focused on ecology and evolutionary biology. Postdoctoral work in ecology and population genetics followed at UC Berkeley.
Agricultural Extension specialist Ian Grettenberg, seminar host, coordinates the department's winter seminars. For technical information on the virtual seminar, contact him at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu.
What are some of the solitary bees, many of which go unnoticed? Here's a sampling.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Congratulations to UC Davis entomology professor Diane Ullman who has just a received Fulbright to France to research plant virus-insect interactions. She will be studying plant viruses and the insects that transmit them.
Her sabbatical, to begin in November, will take her to Montpellier, France, to work with renowned vector biologists Stéphane Blanc and Marilyne Uzest at the National Institute of Agronomic Research (INRA) on the Campus International de Baillarguet near Montpellier. The Biologie et Génetique des Interactions Plante-Parasite (UMR-BGPI, CIRAD-INRA-SupAgro) focuses on plant pathogens and their interactions with arthropod vector in agroecosystems.
She will be studying plant viruses in the genus Orthotospovirus (family Tospoviridae). This family holds the only plant infecting members in the order Bunyaviriales. The other viruses in this order infect animals and humans and are transmitted primarily by mosquitoes and ticks.
Ullman, an international authority on orthotospoviruses, said that "new evidence suggests the bunyavirus, Rift valley fever virus (an animal infecting member of the Bunyavirales), uses a multicomponent system in which individual virions do not co-package all segments and infection requires virion populations, a possibility with profound implications for virus evolution and antiviral target discovery...I will test the hypothesis that orthotospoviruses use multicomponent genome organization and segment copy regulation occurs in their hosts.”
The UC Davis professor has researched insect-transmitted plant pathogens for 37 years, targeting numerous insect vector species--from thrips, whiteflies, and leafhoppers to mealybugs--and the plant pathogens they transmit, including viruses, phytoplasma and bacteria.
“Sustainable management of insect-transmitted pathogens is a key concern for food production in France and the United States,” Ullman wrote in her Fulbright application. “Both countries grow many of the same crops and growers face similar challenges from insect-transmitted plant viruses. Current management strategies rely heavily on pesticides that may cause significant health and environmental concerns, including damage to bees and other pollinators, as shown with neonicotinoid pesticides. Clearly, better knowledge about these insect-transmitted viral systems…has potential to reduce pesticide use by providing novel and innovative technologies to manage tospoviruses and thrips in France and the United States.”
Ullman, former chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and a former associate dean with the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, expects the project will build strong research relationships between UC Davis and Montpellier that will lead to grant applications for international research and scholarly exchange opportunities for scientists, students and post-doctoral scholars.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
There should be a crowd at the UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar on Wednesday, Dec. 7.
That's when evolutionary ecologist Ruth Hufbauer, associate professor at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, who researches insect-plant interactions, will speak on “The Roles of Demography and Genetics in the Founding of New Populations.” Her talk is set for 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. Plans call for it to be recorded and broadcast at a later date on UCTV.
This is the last in the series of UC Davis Department of Entomology seminars for the fall quarter. Host Louie Yang, assistant professor of entomology, will introduce Hufbauer.
Have you ever wondered how insect populations become established in a new environment? Their fate rests on both their demographic and genetic compositions, Hufbaue says.
Hufbauer, who co-organized a seminar on "Evolution and Biological Control" at the Entomological Society of America's 59th annual meeting, held last month at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, says that "Establishment success increases with the number of founders as well as with their genetic diversity. However, because more individuals typically harbor more genetic variation, demography and genetics are linked. To disentangle them requires factorial experiments manipulating numbers of founders of different genetic backgrounds--inbred to outbred.”
Hufbauer will present data from two such factorial experiments. “In both systems, demography and genetic background interact to determine the success of founders. Inbreeding led to reduced success, and those effects depended upon the species and the environment. Inbreeding and genetic drift can, however, have positive effects as well, particularly in the case of purging of deleterious mutations. A third data set supports the idea that purging can happen in natural populations, and may influence subsequent population dynamics.”
Hufbauer, who grew up in California, earned her bachelor of arts degree at UC Berkeley and her doctorate at Cornell. In 2000, she joined the faculty of the Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Colorado State University.
On her website, Hufbauer quotes Ukrainian geneticist/evolutionary biologist Theodosius Dobzhansky (1900-1975): “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.”
She acknowledges that “these days studying and teaching evolution in the U.S. is quite controversial." So, she's thoughtfully posted some links to "sites from the scientific community aimed to educate people about the basics, not only of evolutionary biology, but also what physics and chemistry teach us about the world.”
The National Center for Science Education -The Science of Evolutionary Biology
The National Academy of Science's Science and Creationism Resource Site