- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Oh, there ain't no bugs on me
There ain't no bugs on me
There may be bugs on some of you mugs
But there ain't no bugs on me
You can hear it on YouTube.
UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, drew national news media coverage in 1991 when he declared that the medflies are "established" here, that the "recurring outbreaks" are not caused by tourists continually bringing infested fruit to California in their airline baggage.
Today Carey says that California's fruit fly invasion is in "crisis mode."
The professor will present a Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar on "California's Fruit Fly Invasion Crisis" at 4:10 p.m., Monday, June 3 in Room 122 of Briggs Hall. It also will be on Zoom. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/9 5882849672.
"After seven decades of near-continuous outbreaks in scores of California cities, tephritid fruit fly invasions (e.g., Mediterranean, oriental, peach, and Mexican fruit flies) are reaching critical mass, with many of the annual eradication programs morphing into below-the-radar, never-ending fruit fly control programs," Carey says in his abstract. "Permanent establishment of any one of these tropical species has the potential to shut down the multi-billion dollar domestic and foreign markets for hundreds of California fruit and vegetable crops."
"I will present an overview of the long-developing crisis, discuss lessons learned from analysis of fruit fly detection databases, and argue that, in order to have any chance at stemming this ever-rising tide, CDFA and the USDA urgently needs to switch from their historic, ad hoc eradication strategy to a new one that is evidence-based and far more scientific."
Carey served on the CDFA's Medfly Scientific Advisory Panel from 1987-1994, testified to the California Legislature "Committee of the Whole" in 1990 on the Medfly Crisis in California, and authored the paper "Establishment of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly in California" (1991, Science 258, 457).
Carey is a fellow of four professional societies: the Entomological Society of America, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, and the Gerontological Society of America. He is former director (2003-13) of a 11-university consortium funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIH/P01) on the evolutionary ecology of lifespan.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Do you know who discovered it?
That would be UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, who will present a departmental seminar at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday, May 25, on "The Conceptual Sweep of a Mathematical Discovery in Insect Biodemography: From Medfly Populations to the U.S. Congress."
You can attend the seminar in person at 122 Briggs Hall, UC Davis campus, or access it via Zoom. The Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076.
"Twenty years ago while attempting to develop a new concept for studying insect aging in the wild, I discovered a previously unknown mathematical identity now referred to in the formal demography literature as the eponym Carey's Equality—the age distribution of a stationary population equals the distribution of lifetimes yet to come," Professor Carey says in his abstract. "In this seminar I will present my attempts at both operationalizing the concept for study of populations of insects and other non-human species, and generalizing it for applications to groups with fixed numbers of members and where renewal involves birth and death processes."
"These general applications include data from a British cemetery, the National Basketball Association, the Baltimore Longitudinal Health Study, the U.S. Congress (both chambers) and the world population," said Carey, a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty since 1980. "After discussing implications and extensions of the identity, I will wrap up with descriptions of five simple but important demographic relations that all entomologists should know."
Highly honored for his research, teaching and public service, Carey served as the principal investigator of a 10-year, $10 million federal grant on “Aging in the Wild,” encompassing 14 scientists at 11 universities.
Biodemography Textbook. In 2020, he and Deborah Roach, professor and chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Biology, co-authored a 480-page textbook, Biodemography: An Introduction to Concepts and Methods, published by Princeton University Press and hailed as the “definitive textbook for the emerging field of biodemography, integrating biology, mathematics and demography.” Carey recently created a free-access, video guidebook with a playlist of 175 separate presentations, subtitled in 300 different languages. He storyboarded the script, turned graphs, schematics, tables and equations into animated slides, and then with teleprompter assistance, narrated and video-recorded the 175 presentations, which span 12 hours of viewing. It appears on UC Berkeley Population Sciences website at https://bit.ly/3FTge7u.
An internationally recognized teacher, Carey won a 2018 global award in the Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching Program, an academic competition sponsored every two years by Baylor University, Waco, Texas. He received the 2015 Distinguished Achievement in Teaching Award from the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from the Pacific Branch of ESA. The UC Davis Academic Senate honored him as the recipient of its 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award, given to internationally recognized professors who excel at teaching.
Carey is a fellow of four organizations: American Association for the Advancement of Science, Entomological Society of America, California Academy of Science and the Gerontological Society of America. He holds a doctorate in entomology (1980) from UC Berkeley, and two degrees from Iowa State University: a bachelor of science degree in animal biology (1973) and a master's degree in entomology (1975).
Nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, coordinates the spring seminars. He may be reached at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu for any technical issues regarding Zoom. (See complete list of spring seminars.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Coordinator Shahid Siddique, assistant professor of nematology, UC Davis Dpartment of Entomology and Nematology, has announced the list of spring quarter seminars.
The seminars will take place at 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time, on Wednesdays, beginning March 30 and will continue through June 1. The in-person seminars will be in 122 Briggs Hall. All also will be broadcast on Zoom. The link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076.
Wednesday, March 30 (in-person and virtual)
Ziad Khouri, international graduate student
Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Title: "Scoliid Wasp Evolution and Some Adventures with Posterior Predictive Simulation"
Host: Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology
Wednesday, April 6 (virtual)
Makedonka Mitreva, professor of medicine and genetics
Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis
Title: "Multi-omics Applications in Helminth Research"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 13 (in-person and virtual)
Tobin Hammer, assistant professor, ecology and evolutionary biology
UC Irvine
Title: “Mystery of the Missing Microbes: Why Do Bees Keep Losing Their Symbionts?”
Host: Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 20 (in-person and virtual)
Jared Ali, assistant professor of entomology
Pennsylvania State University, State College
Title: "Chemical Ecology of Plant Defense and Multi-trophic Interactions: Bad Bugs, Pungent Parasites and Toxic Travelers"
Host: Richard Karban, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 27 (virtual)
Heather Bruce, postdoctoral researcher
Marine Biological Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley
Title: "Evolution and Development of Arthropod Appendages: Novelty and Homology"
Host: Xavier Zahnle, doctoral student, Jason Bond lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 4 (virtual)
Scott McArt, assistant professor of entomology
Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Title: "Pesticide Risk to Pollinators: What We Know and What We Need to Know Better"
Host: Lexie Nichole Martin, doctoral student, Rachel Vannette lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 11 (virtual)
Mostafa Zamanian, assistant professor, Department of Pathobiological Sciences
School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Title: "Combing Target and Whole-Organism Paradigms for Anthelmintic Discovery"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 18 (virtual)
Corlett Wood, assistant professor of biology
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Title: "The Conflict Beneath your Feet: Indirect Effects in Plant-Symbiont Interactions"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 25 (in-person and virtual)
James R. Carey, UC Davis distinguished professor
UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Title: "The Conceptual Sweep of a Mathematical Discovery in Insect Demography: From Estimation of Medfly Population Age Structure to an Historical Analysis of U.S. Congress Incumbency Distributions, 1785-2000”
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, June 1 (in-person and virtual)
Isgouhi Kaloshian, Divisional Dean, Agricultural and Natural Resources
UC Riverside
Title: "Root-Knot Nematode Perception and Immune Signaling in Arabidopsis"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
For any technical issues, reach coordinator Shahid Siddique at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Ask away at the Science Café.
This is an informative scientific presentation held the second Wednesday of each month in the G St. Wunderbar, 228 G St., Davis. The scientist delivers a brief talk and then engages the public.
Next Wednesday, Oct. 10, biodemography expert James R. Carey, a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology and an expert on human aging (as well as insects!) will speak at 5:30 p.m. on "Are There Upper Limits to Human Lifespan?"
How long can humans live? Well, supercentarian Jeanne Calment of France (1875-1997), lived to be 122. Born Feb. 21, 1875, she died Aug. 4, 1997. She enjoyed a healthy lifestyle, prayed and exercised daily, and lived a basically stress-free life. But yes, she drank a little wine and smoked a little. She outlived her husband, daughter and grandson.
“Why do we live as long as we do (evolutionary question), why do we age (mechanisms question) and why do we die (closure question)?” Carey asks.
Some of the topics to be discussed at the event, billed as “a conversation and dialogue with a scientist,” include:
- The trends in aging research on extending human lifespan.
- Theoretical arguments for upper limits and empirical evidence in humans
- The impact of disease elimination and organ replacement on longevity
- With the changes in human life expectancy, humans are now being given a second chance-- somewhat like the proverbial cat with nine lives--after an otherwise life-ending disease or incident
- Look to nature for perspectives on the limits of “life duration,” for example 40,000-year-old frozen nematodes; hibernation and dormancy) and limits to “active lifespan.”
An internationally recognized leader and distinguished scholar in insect demography and invasion biology, spanning three decades, Carey also researches health demography, biology of aging, and lifespan theory. He is the author of a landmark study published in the journal Science in 1992 that showed mortality of Mediterranean fruit flies (medflies) slows at older ages. Earlier this year scientists confirmed that this also occurs in humans, citing the study of 105-year-old Italian women.
Carey, who joined the UC Davis faculty in 1980, directed an 11-university, $10 million, 10-year study on biodemography of aging from 2003-2013. He is also known for discovering Carey's Equality or the death distribution in a life table population equals its age structure. He teaches a popular longevity course that draws 250 to 300 students year, and recently authored a book on biodemography, to be published by Princeton University next year.
And, if you want to ask Professor Carey about medflies, he can answer those, too. He was a recent recipient of a UC Davis Academic Senate Distinguished Scholarly Public Service Award for his “outstanding research, outreach and advocacy program involving invasion biology, specifically his significant contributions on two California insect pest invaders, the Mediterranean Fruit Fly (medfly) and the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM).”
Professor Jared Shaw, interim chair of the UC Davis Department of Chemistry and founder of the Science Café series, will host the Oct. 10th presentation. Launched in 2012 and initially supported by the National Science Foundation, the popular series now draws support from the Department of Chemistry and Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences and is promoted by Capital Science Communicators.
See schedule on the UC Davis Department of Chemistry website.
