- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
You're in luck. You can access (for free) the newly uploaded UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's fall and winter seminars, 2019-2020. Each spans about an hour long.
Community ecologist Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, coordinated the seminars. Thanks also to Hyun Suk Shin and George Terry and crew for videoing them and/or uploading them on the web.
Fall Quarter, 2019
Sept. 25, 2019
James Nieh, professor, Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Department of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego
Topic: "Animal Information Warfare: How Sophisticated Communication May Arise from the Race to Find an Advantage in a Deadly Game Between Honey Bees and their Predators" (See lab website)
Host: Brian Johnson, associate professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 2
Nathan Schroeder, assistant professor, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Topic: "Endless Worms Most Beautiful"
Host: Shahid Saddique, assistant professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 9
John Mola, doctoral candidate, Neal Williams lab, Graduate Group in Ecology
Exit seminar: "Bumble Bee Movement Ecology and Response to Wildfire." Mola specializes in bee biology, pollinator ecology and population genetics.
Host: Neal Williams, professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 16
Rebecca Irwin, professor of applied ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.
Topic: "The Role of Floral Traits in Pollination and Bee Disease Transmission." She specializes in the ecology and evolution of multiple-species interactions, pollination biology, and species invasions
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 23
Julián Hillyer, director of the program in career development and associate professor of biological sciences, Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation, Nashville, Tenn.
Topic: "Not So Heartless: Functional Integration of the Immune and Circulatory Systems of Mosquitoes"
Host: Olivia Winokur, graduate student, Chris Barker lab
Link to Seminar
Oct. 30
Takato Imaizumi, professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle
Topic: "Circadian Timing Mechanisms in Plant-Pollinator Interaction"
Host: Joanna Chiu, associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Nov. 13
Don Cippollini, director of environmental sciences and professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Wright State University
Topic: "The Potential for Host Switching via Ecological Fitting in the Emerald Ash Borer-Host Plant System"
Link to Seminar
Dec. 4, 2019
Jackson Audley, doctoral candidate who studied with the late Steve Seybold
Topic: "Semiochemical Interruption of Host Selection Behavior of the Invasive Walnut Twig Beetle, Pityophthorus juglandis."
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020
Karen Menuz, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Topic: "Molecular Basis of Insect Olfaction"
Host: Walter Leal, distinguished professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the entomology department
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 15
Corrie Moreau, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Topic: "Piecing Together the Puzzle to Understand the Evolution of the Ants"
Host: Marshall McMunn, graduate student
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 22
Sebastian Eves-van den Akker, University of Cambridge, UK
Topic: Effector Gene Birth in Plant-Parasitic Nematodes: Furnishing the Immunity and Development-Altering 'Tool Box'
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 29
Elizabeth Crone, Tufts University, Medford, Mass.
Topic: "Why Are Monarch Butterflies Declining in the West?"
Hosts: Neal Williams, professor; Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 5
Andrew Young, postdoctoral scholar at California Department of Food and Agriculture, Pest Diagnostic
Topic: "The Natural History of Syrphidae: From Pollinators To Parasitoids"
Host: Lynn Kimsey, professor and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 12
Kevin Rice, University of Missouri, Columbia
Topic: "Lasers, Drones, and Growth Promoting Fungus: New Technologies for IPM"
Host: Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Mercedes Burns, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Topic: "Reproductive Diversity And Sexual Conflict: Opilionid Mating From The Female Perspective"
Host: Jason Bond, professor and Schlinger Chair in Insect Systematics
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 26:
Faculty Flash Talks (featuring series of faculty members, including Rachel Vannette, Ian Grettenberger, Shahid Siddique, Geoffrey Attardo, Jason Bond)
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, March 4
Brendon Boudinot, doctoral candidate, Phil Ward lab, exit seminar
Topic: "Morphology and Evolution of the Insects, and the Ancestors of the Ants"
Host: Phil Ward, professor
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, March 11
Mary Salcedo, postdoctoral researcher, Virginia Tech
Topic: "Hydraulics in an Insect Wing: How Venation Pattern Affects Circulation"
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
Link to Seminar
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
From a beneficial insect to pests...
It's good to see the wide diversity of topics in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminar schedule.
Seminar coordinator Christian Nansen, agricultaral entomologist and an assistant professor, has just announced the list of speakers.
The seminars, open to all interested persons, are scheduled on Wednesdays from 4:10 to 5 p.m. beginning Jan. 11 and continuing through March 15 in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, located on Kleiber Hall Drive, UC Davis campus. Plans are to record all the seminars for later viewing on UCTV.
Some seminars are quite technical but all look interesting--especially the one on honey bees. William Meikle, Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Agricultural Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture, will speak March 15 on "Using Continuous Monitoring to Measure Colony-Level Behavior in Social Insects: A Case Study with Honey Bees." Meikle received his doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley.
A familiar name and face is Kelli Hoover, who received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1997. Now a professor of entomology at Pennsylvania State University, she'll speak on "Mechanisms of Resistance in Poplar Against the Asian Longhorned Beetle and Its Gut Symbionts" on March 8.
While a grad student at UC Davis, Hoover studied with major professors Bruce Hammock and Sean Duffey (1943-1997). After a one-year postdoctoral position at UC Berkeley, she joined the faculty of the Penn State University Department of Entomology in 1998.
Her research program at Penn State focuses on invasive species, including development of trapping techniques for the Asian longhorned beetle; gut microbial symbionts of the Asian longhorned beetle and hemlock woolly adelgid; functions of key viral genes in transmission of the gypsy moth baculovirus and anti-viral defenses; and biological control of hemlock woolly adelgid.
UC Davis professor Diane Ullman, an expert on flower thrips, will speak Jan. 18 on "Journey into the Microcosm: A Closer Look at the Western Flower Thrips." She describes thrips as tiny insects that pierce and suck fluids from hundreds of species of plants, including tomatoes, grapes, strawberries and soybeans. The pests cause billions of dollars in damage to U.S. agricultural crops as direct pests and in transmitting plant viruses in the genus Tospovirus, such as Tomato spotted wilt virus. “There are 23 additional approved and emerging tospovirus genotypes transmitted by at least 14 thrips species (Thysanoptera: Thripidae),” said Ullman, who has been researching thrips and tospoviruses since 1987.
The seminar schedule:
Wednesday, Jan. 11
Marco Gebiola, postdoctoral fellow, University of Arizona, Tucson
Topic: ""From Embroys to Hybrids: How the Symbiont Cardinium Shapes the Ecology and Evolution of Encarsia Parasitoids"
Wednesday, Jan. 18
Diane Ullman, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Topic: "Journey into the Microcosm: A Closer Look at the Western Flower Thrips"
Wednesday, Jan. 25
Sharon Lawler, professor of entomology, and Ph.D candidate Erin Donley, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Topic: "Effects of Aquatic Vegetation and Its Management on Aquatic Invertebrates"
Wednesday, Feb. 1
Greg Sword, professor and Charles R. Parencia Chair in Cotton Entomology, Department of Entomology, Texas A&M, College Station
Topic: "Fungal Endophytes Can Mediate Resistance to Insects, Nematodes and Drought in Cotton Agroecosytems"
Wednesday, Feb. 8
Jennifer Thaler, professor, Department of Entomology, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Topic: "Tritrophic Interactions and the Ecology of Fear"
Wednesday, Feb. 15
Pedro Miura, assistant professor, Department of Biology, University of Nevada, Reno
Topic: "Age Accumulation of CircRNAs"
Wednesday, Feb. 22
Jared Ali, assistant professor of entomology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Topic: "Multi-Trophic Interactions and the Chemical Ecology of Plant Defenses in Above and Below Ground Contexts"
Wednesday, March 1
Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Topic: "Reflectance Profiling as a Tool to Study Insects and Other Objects"
Wednesday, March 8
Kelli Hoover, professor of entomology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
Topic: "Mechanisms of Resistance in Poplar Against the Asian Longhorned Beetle and Its Gut Symbionts"
Wednesday, March 15
William Meikle, Carl Hayden Bee Research Center, Agricultural Research Center, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Topic: "Using Continuous Monitoring to Measure Colony-Level Behavior in Social Insects: A Case Study with Honey Bees"
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Indeed, we can take lessons from the ants, according to ecologist Rob Dunn (right), assistant professor in the Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh.
Dunn, author of Every Living Thing: Man's Obsessive Quest to Catalog Life, from Nanobacteria to New Monkeys, will open the UC Davis Department of Entomology's winter seminar series on Wednesday, Jan. 5 with a presentation on “Using Collaborative Approaches to See the Geography and Future of life: Lessons From Ants.”
Dunn will speak from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 1022 Life Sciences Addition (LSA), corner of Hutchison and Kleiber Hall. His host is Bonnie Blaimer of the Phil Ward lab.
Be sure to check out Dunn's website, where you'll find his newly published research on ants and information on a troubling ant (Asian needle ant) in the hardwood forests of eastern North America.
The Department of Entomology seminars, coordinated by graduate student Ian Pearse of the Rick Karban lab, will be held every Wednesday from 12:10 to 1 p.m. through March. 9 in 1022 LSA, a change from last quarter's seminars (held in 122 Briggs Hall). UC Davis graduate students are hosting the individual presentations.
All presentations will be webcast live and then archived on this page. Graduate students James Harwood and Amy Morice of the Jim Carey lab donate their time to webcast the seminars.
The entire list of speakers, beginning with Dunn:
Jan. 5: Rob Dunn, assistant professor, Department of Biology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh. Topic: “Using Collaborative Approaches to See the Geography and Future of Life: Lessons From Ants.” Host: Bonnie Blaimer
Jan. 12: Amanda Hodson, UC Davis postdoctoral scholar. Topic: “Ecological Influence of the Entomopathogenic Nematode, Steinernema carpocapsae, on Soil Arthropods in Pistachio Orchards.” Host: Brittany Mills
Jan. 19: Jonathan Pruitt, Center for Population Biology Postdoctoral Fellow, UC Davis Department of Ecology and Evolution. Topic: “From Individuals to Populations to Communities: When Does Personality Matter?” Host: Meredith Cenzer.
Jan. 26: Angela Smilanich, adjunct faculty in biology at University of Nevada, Reno, and affiliate associate research faculty at the Desert Research Institute, Reno. Topic: "Self-Medication vs. Self-Toxicity in Generalist and Specialist Herbivores.” Host: Ian Pearse.
Feb. 2: Don Miller, associate professor, Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, Chico. Topic: "Strategies of Tamalia Aphids: Freeloading, Gall Induction, Adaptive Sex Allocation.” Host: Scott McCluen
Feb. 9: Roger Vargas, research entomologist, USDA-ARS. Topic: "Area-Wide Fruit Fly Programs against Fruit Flies in Hawaii, French Polynesia and California." Host: James Harwood
Feb., 16: Gary Blomquist, professor and department chair, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nevada, Reno. Topic: "Pheromone Production in Bark Beetles." Host: George Kamita.
Feb. 23: Tom Turner, assistant professor of ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology, UC Santa Barbara. Topic: "Evolutionary Functional Genomics: How Can We Find the Natural Genetic Variants Affecting Interesting Traits in Model Insects?" Host: Jackie Wong
March 2: Stan Faeth, professor and head, Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Title: "Asexual Endophytes in Native Grasses: Tiny Partners with Big Community Effects.” Host: Ian Pearse.
March 9: Jeffrey Feder, professor, Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame. Title: (To be announced.) Host: Meredith Cenzer
