This tiger moth is the work of talented street artist Srdan Tunic, a UC Davis master's program student in art history. (Photo by Srdan Tunic)

It was like a moth to a flame--or 400 moths to a flame--when a record crowd surged into the Bohart Museum of Entomology Moth Night for its July 30th open house.

After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID pandemic, "how great it was to have the doors open again for the public," said entomologist Jeff Smith, curator of the lepidoptera collection.

The 400-member crowd, thought to be the largest crowd at the Bohart, other than at UC Davis Picnic Day, was there to learn more about moths, draw images of moths on the sidewalks, enjoy an evening of camaraderie, and head outside to watch moths and other insects fly onto the hanging white sheet, part of the blacklighting demonstration display.

“People could draw whatever they wanted on chalk (outside the Academic Surge Building), but there were a lot of moths, although my kids went rogue and drew a soccer field and a figure,” said Tabatha Yang, the Bohart Museum education and outreach coordinator. 

The blacklighting display. (Photo by Tabatha Yang)

“We ran out of hot water, for the hot cocoa packets, and cookies half-way through!" Yand said, quipping "I thought we would be eating left over chocolate chip cookies at the Bohart all week, but alas that is not the case.” 

The blacklighting display (white hanging sheet, ultraviolet light, and a generator) served as a demonstration site. "We had a few small beetles and a few small moths come in," Yang said. 

The open house, which drew visitors from as far away as Alameda, took place the weekend before UC Davis summer sessions, so “the popularity among the college set was perhaps because of that, she said. "People were free from studying their required courses and so, on their own, they decided to seek out and learn about moths!” 

Kareofelas fielded scores of questions about the Polyphemus moth, Antheraea polyphemus. “They are currently making their appearance in Davis, so a number of folks have seen them and had photos on their phones," he said. "A number of folks came with the desire to see a specific moth, and if we were lucky, it was located in the aisle we had open. Jeff (Smith) had pulled the drawers, from other aisles, with a number of specific species and had them labeled--a lot of questions about these drawers.”

"Some wanted to see the hummingbird moth, so I got to show Hyles lineata to a number of folks," Kareofelas said. "We had a lot of just plain 'good ol' interest' in seeing something and learning something about moths. The night started with a bang and went right to 11:00, still busy!"

Srdan Tunic (Photo by Leah Theis)

"I was surprised at how popular the event was, how busy the store was, and how many folks showed up," Kareofelas said. "It was a great night!"

Smith spent the entire open house demonstrating how to spread the wings of moths. “I couldn't believe how many people came, and I was never ABLE to leave the table where I was demonstrating spreading," Smith said. "There was a constant group of people watching and asking questions, such as 'How did you become interested in this?' and of course, lots of questions on the spreading materials and techniques." 

“The moment the door officially opened at 8 p.m.,  groups came in and headed in all different directions," Smith said.  "One couple from Dixon was there with a group of scouts and they must have hung around my demo for 45 minutes with all kinds of interest and questions. People showed me photos on their cell phones of the white-lined sphinx moth, the ceanothus silk moth, and even a buck moth (Hemileuca) from Mono Basin."

Smith said he allowed "at least 10 different young people try their own hand at spreading a moth or two and that was really well received. I had a ziplock bag of surplus, papered moths and let some of the people take some for themselves. When it finally slowed a bit, I finally got up and couldn't believe it was already past 11 p.m." He headed over to the moth aisle where Kareofelas was still showing and answering questions about moths. "Greg did an amazing job. And, I ended up talking to a couple who work on campus until nearly 11:30."

Outside, the crowd marveled at the chalk drawings, including the tiger moths created by Srdan Tunic of UC Davis, a second-year master's degree student in art history.  Skilled in street art and in academics (his Linked In profile indicates "Curating: creating bridges between art and people, ideas and objects"), Tunic is the co-founder, researcher and guide of Street Art Walks Belgrade, where he conducts lectures and tours on street art, graffiti, and the history of Belgrade.  He holds a bachelor of arts degree (2008) in art history from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and a master of arts in cultural policy and management (2017) from the University of Arts, Belgrade. He expects to receive his master's degree in art history from UC Davis in May of 2023. 

The Bohart Museum, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus, and directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of more than eight million insect specimens. It also houses a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop. The latest t-shirt features a Jerusalem cricket, aka potato bug.

Community ecologist Louie Yang, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

“This study collected a high-resolution temporal dataset on milkweed-monarch interactions during the last three years prior to the precipitous single-year population decline of western monarchs in 2018,” said community ecologist Louie Yang, a professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Yang organized and led a 135-member team, all co-authors of the paper, “Different Factors Limit Early- and Late-Season Windows of Opportunity for Monarch Development,” published in the journal  Ecology and Evolution. (This document is open access at https://bit.ly/3volFaI.)

From 2015 through 2017, the team monitored the interactions of monarchs,  Danaus plexippus, on narrow-leaved milkweed, Asclepias fascicularis, planted in December 2013on city-owned property adjacent to the North Davis irrigation channel. 

“This study has three key findings,” the UC Davis professor said. “First, we documented early and late seasonal windows of opportunity in the wild, migratory western monarch population. Second, our data suggest that early and late seasonal windows were constrained by different factors. Third, climatic and microclimatic variation had a strong effect on the timing and importance of multiple factors affecting monarch development. Broadly, we hope that this study contributes to a more temporally detailed understanding of the complex factors that contribute to year-to-year variation in monarch breeding success.” 

This monarch larva is newly hatched. (Photo by Larry Snyder)

Feared on its way to extinction, the migratory monarch is now on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species as Endangered—threatened by habitat destruction and climate change.  Statistics show that the overwintering population of western monarchs along coastal California has declined by more than 99 percent since the 1980s, according to the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation.

The UC Davis-based team set out to answer three questions: (1) How do the developmental prospects of monarchs vary in time, within- and across years? (2) How do the combined effects of bottom-up, top-down, and abiotic factors interact with seasonal variation in monarch density to constrain the timing and extent of seasonal windows of opportunity? and (3) How do climatic variation and microhabitat heterogeneity affect these constraints?

A monarch chrysalis at the UC Davis research site. (Photo by Larry Snyder)

The results showed that different combinations of factors constrained the early- and late-season windows of opportunity for monarch recruitment.  “Early-season windows of opportunity were characterized by high egg densities and low survival on a select subset of host plants, consistent with the hypothesis that early-spring migrant female monarchs select earlier-emerging plants to balance a seasonal trade-off between increasing host plant quantity and decreasing host plant quality,” the abstract relates. “Late-season windows of opportunity were coincident with the initiation of host plant senescence, and caterpillar success was negatively correlated with heatwave exposure, consistent with the hypothesis that late-season windows were constrained by plant defense traits and thermal stress.” 

The researchers also noted: 

• “Throughout this study, climatic and microclimatic variations played a foundational role in the timing and success of monarch developmental windows by affecting bottom-up, top-down, and abiotic limitations. More exposed microclimates were associated with higher developmental success during cooler conditions, and more shaded microclimates were associated with higher developmental success during warmer conditions, suggesting that habitat heterogeneity could buffer the effects of climatic variation.”
• “Together, these findings show an important dimension of seasonal change in milkweed-monarch interactions and illustrate how different biotic and abiotic factors can limit the developmental success of monarchs across the breeding season. These results also suggest the potential for seasonal sequences of favorable or unfavorable conditions across the breeding range to strongly affect monarch population dynamics.”

Yang and his team planted 318 narrow-leaved milkweed adjacent to the seasonal irrigation channel, which carries runoff water with a “seasonal pattern of generally increased flow during summer irrigation periods and immediately following winter precipitation events. As a result, this site combines several elements representative of the California Central Valley at a landscape scale.”   The Davis site typifies a “Mediterranean pattern of cool, wet winters and hot dry summers.”

The researchers recorded daily temperatures and precipitation in one dataset, and in a second dataset, sub-hourly temperature observations, approximately every 20 minutes. They defined the “early season” as days 90–180 (approximately the end of March to the end of June) and the late season as days 180–270 (approximately the end of June to the end of September) each year.” 

They measured and recorded the milkweed growth and leaf area removal by herbivores, and counted and measured the eggs and larvae. They also gathered information on the predator and herbivore community. 

MMMILC Project. Participants in the Monitoring Milkweed–Monarch Interactions for Learning and Conservation (MMMILC) Project, directed by Yang, collected most of the observations. Yang provided hands-on, in-person training in milkweed-monarch biology, data collection, and data entry protocols, partnering with the Environmental Science internship program led by Eric Bastin at Davis Senior High School and the Growing Green internship program led by Karen Swan at the Center for Land-based Learning, Woodland.

 “We documented 674 weekly observations of monarch eggs and 997 weekly observations of monarch caterpillars across the three years of this study,” the researchers wrote. “Monarchs were most numerous in 2016. We observed 2.7 times as many monarch eggs in 2016 as in 2015 and 2.2 times as many as in 2017. We observed 3.0 times as many caterpillars in 2016 as in 2015, and 2.5 times as many as in 2017. Separated by year and normalized by the total number of emerged plants each year, we observed 137 eggs and 193 caterpillars (0.49 egg and 0.69 caterpillar observations per plant) in 2015, 369 eggs and 576 caterpillars (1.55 egg and 2.42 caterpillar observations per plant) in 2016 and 168 eggs and 226 caterpillars (0.74 egg and 1.0 caterpillar observations per plant) in 2017.

Among their research findings:

• The early and late monarch developmental periods were generally warmer in 2017 than in the two previous years.
• The number of surviving emerged plants declined over the 3-year study, from 281 (88.3 percent) in 2015, to 238 (75 percent) in 2016 to 226 (71 percent) in 2017. However, an increasing proportion of the surviving plants attained a total stem length exceeding 50 cm across these same years: 137 (49 percent of 281) in 2015, 144 (61 percent of 238) in 2016, and 175 (77 percent of 226).
• The growth of milkweeds changed dramatically in 2017 following the rainy winter of 2016–2017. Milkweeds in 2017 attained sizes (maximum weekly mean total stem lengths) that were 70 percent larger than in 2015, and 64 percent larger than in 2016, and the variance of the plant size distribution also increased.
• Milkweed emerged earliest in 2016 (mean emergence day 110) and nearly four weeks later in 2017 (mean emergence day 137).

Unfortunately, a City of Davis maintenance crew unintentionally mowed the site on May 5, 2017, “damaging several plants in this population. However, most plants in the population were below the height of the mower blades at this point in the growing season.”  

Today the milkweed population at the North Davis Channel is being maintained by the City of Davis and dedicated citizens, including Larry Snyder, who documented the project in photographs. “We aren't monitoring there intensively, but we've seen monarch eggs, caterpillars and adults there this year,” Yang said. 

More monarch projects from the Louie Yang lab are pending. “The next paper in press represents research done several years ago and is focused on the timing of herbivory and its effects on flowering,” he said.  “We are studying several California milkweed species.” 

The deadline to RSVP for the Celebration of Life for internationally known honey bee authority, Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is Monday, Aug. 1.

The memorial is set from 4 to 6 p.m., Sunday, Aug. 28 in the Putah Creek Lodge, 685 Putah Creek Lodge Drive. To RSVP, access https://ericmussencelebrationofli.rsvpify.com.  For those who cannot attend in person, UC Davis distinguished professor Walter Leal of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and a former chair of the Department of Entomology, is generously donating his time and talents to do a live Zoom webinar. Registration is underway here at https://bit.ly/3czl5Am; no deadline to register. It also will be on YouTube.

Dr. Mussen, a 38-year California Cooperative Extension apiculturist died Friday, June 3 from liver cancer, after a diagnosis several days before. He was 78. (See https://bit.ly/3ou1O5W)

The tentative program:

• Introductory remarks by administrators, including UC Davis Chancellor Gary May
• Speakers from UC Davis, the bee industry and almond industry
• Memory table 
• PowerPoint presentation of images
• Songs by the Davis-based Doo wop group directed by Frank Fox (Dr. Mussen was an active member)
• A honey bee observation hive, compliments of Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño, director of the California Master Beekeeper Program
• Light refreshments, including a bee-themed cake.

The National Honey Board is donating honey bee pins, and Amina Harris, director of the Honey and Pollination Center, will provide honey straws.

Dr. Mussen, known to all as "Eric,”  joined the UC Davis entomology department in 1976. Although he retired in 2014, he continued his many activities until a few weeks prior to his death. For nearly four decades, he drew praise as “the honey bee guru,” “the pulse of the bee industry" and "the go-to person" when consumers, scientists, researchers, students, and the news media sought answers about honey bees. Join us to celebrate his life and legacy.

Dr. Mussen worked with everyone interested in honey bees--from 4-H beekeepers to large-scale commercial beekeeping operations. For years, he volunteered his expertise for the National 4-H Beekeeping Essay Competition sponsored by the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees. He chaired the California-level contest and judged the entries. 

Family and friends suggest memorial contributions be made to the California State 4-H Beekeeping Program, with a note, "Eric Mussen Memorial Fund." Mary Ciriceillo, director of development for the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, said checks may be made out to the California 4-H Foundation and mailed to:  

UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim, recipient of a campuswide Graduate Program Advising and Mentoring Award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Jean-Pierre Delplanque, vice provost and dean of Graduate Studies, says the program recognizes "faculty providing outstanding service in advising and mentoring at the program level."

In a letter to Professor Rosenheim, he praised his "excellent service to your graduate program, as well as your positive impact on graduate students and your colleagues. We thank you for your investment in advising and mentoring graduate students and contribution to their success."

Delplanque singled out a few excerpts from the award packet: 

• “He has demonstrated his unparalleled dedication to mentoring students, and ability to cultivate an atmosphere of learning, excitement, and critical thinking in the lab, field, and classroom. He consistently makes time to support his students. Regardless of his current teaching and research demands, Jay will provide feedback, schedule meetings, and maintain his open door policy.”
  
  
• “Jay is a remarkably skillful and reassuring mentor with a natural generosity of spirit and a broad view of mentorship. He has deep knowledge in a wide range of subject areas, and also has the wisdom to offer students good advice on all stages of the research process. Jay is especially good at putting students at ease and motivating them to persist through the setbacks of research. I have often seen students go to Jay for advice when they are worried and leave feeling better about the road ahead.”

Delplanque noted that "Graduate Studies is committed to showcasing and promoting positive mentoring experiences like yours. Graduate advising and mentoring is vital for guiding students through their degrees and professional development, while also helping ensure their overall success and well-being. Your efforts exemplify outstanding service in mentorship and we hope you will join us in championing the benefits and significance of graduate student mentoring across campus. Congratulations again on your achievement."

Rosenheim, who specializes in insect ecology, integrated pest management, and biological control, and the use of farmer-generated data to enhance pest and crop management ('Ecoinformatics'), holds a bachelor's degree in entomology (1983) from UC Davis and a doctorate in entomology (1987) from UC Berkeley. He joined the UC Davis faculty in 1990. and become a UC Davis distinguished professor in 2018. 

Humbled and honored to receive the award, Rosenheim says that "The job of a professor is quite diverse, and quite rewarding in different ways. Teaching in a classroom provides instant gratification, as you see the light of understanding and excitement shining in students' eyes as they explore and grasp new concepts. Research in the laboratory provides instead delayed gratification, where long periods of hard work--sometimes years--may pass before questions are answered and one feels the satisfaction of pushing forward the margins of scientific understanding."

"But, perhaps the most lasting sense of accomplishment comes from mentoring graduate students," Rosenheim says. Building relationships with graduate students, watching them grow in their skills and confidence and, finally, seeing them establish themselves in their careers, provides the kind of reward that is similar in some ways to the happiness that parents derive from their children. And the relationships never end – they are bonds that last a lifetime. I think the key to effective mentorship is to place the student's welfare at the top of one's priority list. So, drafts of papers should be returned promptly with constructive suggestions, and not allowed to languish in a long queue of manuscripts waiting for reviews--more senior colleagues can wait, if someone needs to wait.

"And, I think effective mentorship also means tailoring the kind of assistance provided to the needs and desires of each student. Mentorship is definitely not a one-size-fits-all kind of undertaking. Some students need a lot of encouragement (actually, almost everyone benefits from positive feedback, because research often produces huge servings of critiques), some students need more assistance, especially at the earliest stages of their research, but some students absolutely chafe under too much input, and instead want total independence. That's fine – it's important to adjust to each student's desires and needs. I think good mentorship also means establishing a laboratory culture of openness and collegiality. Everyone should be happy to come to the lab, learn from each other, and contribute to each other's research progress. Mentorship doesn't just come from the lab PI (principal investigator), but from everyone who makes the lab a community."

A native of Yorktown, N.Y, young Jay developed an interest in biology while exploring the vernal pools behind his Hudson River Valley home.  As an undergraduate at UC Davis, he initially majored in physics. "On a lark" he enrolled in Professor Harry Kaya's Entomology 100 course in 1981.  The professor inspired him, the class enthralled him, and insects captivated him. 

Rosenheim's career has not only led to his being elected a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, but recipient of teaching awards from the Associated Students of UC Davis and the UC Davis Academic Senate; and the Distinguished Student Mentoring Award from ESA's Pacific Branch. 

He co-founded and co-directs the campuswide Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB) with Professors Joanna Chiu and Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.   The program aims to provide "undergraduates with a closely-mentored research experience in biology," according to the website. "Because insects can be used as model systems to explore virtually any area of biology (population biology; behavior and ecology; biodiversity and evolutionary ecology; agroecology; genetics and molecular biology; biochemistry and physiology; cell biology), faculty in the program can provide research opportunities across the full sweep of biology.  The program's goal is to provide academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a multi-year research experience that cultivates skills that will prepare them for a career in biological research."