- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Moreau is the Moser Professor of Biosystematics and Biodiversity, Departments of Entomology and Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. and the curator of the Cornell University Insect Collection.
"Moreau and colleagues were the first to establish the origin of the ants at 140 million years ago using molecular sequence data (40 million years older than previous estimates), and that the diversification of the ants coincided with the rise of the flowering plants (angiosperms)," according to an entry in Wikipedia. "In addition, Moreau and Charles D. Bell showed that the tropics have been and continue to be important for the evolution of the ants. Moreau and colleagues have demonstrated the importance of gut-associated bacteria in the evolutionary and ecological success of ants through targeted bacterial and microbiome sequencing, including showing that bacterial gut symbionts are tightly linked with the evolution of herbivory in ants."
Her honors are many. In 2018 she was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also in 2018, she was featured in National Geographic as a "Woman of Impact." In 2015, she was included in "15 Brilliant Women Bridging the Gender Gap in Science."
A native of New Orleans, Moreau holds degrees (bachelor and master's) from San Francisco State University and a doctorate in biology from Harvard University (2007). At Harvard, she studied with major professors E. O. Wilson and Naomi Pierce. Wilson featured her in his 2013 book, Letter to a Young Scientist.
"There was no bravado in Corrie, no trace of overweening pride, no pretension," Wilson wrote. "The story of Corrie Saux Moreau's ambitious undertaking is one I feel especially important to bring to you. It suggests that courage in science born of self-confidence (without arrogance!), a willingness to take a risk but with resilience, a lack of fear of authority, a set of mind that prepares you to take a new direction if thwarted, are of great value – win or lose."
Moreau will cover diverse topics in her talk. "To fully understand the macro evolutionary factors that have promoted the diversification and persistence of biological diversity, varied tools and disciplines must be integrated," she says in her abstract. "By combining data from several fields, including molecular phylogenetics/phylogenomics, comparative genomics, biogeographic range reconstruction, stable isotyope analyses, and microbial community sequencing to study the evolutionary history of the insects, we are beginning to understand the drivers of speciation and the interconnectedness of life. Comparative phylogenetic analysis reveals the interconnectedness of ants and plants and that ants diversified after the rise of the angiosperms. Comparative genomics has permitted the exploration of the role of symbiosis on genome evolution and behavioral gene evolution demonstrating that Red Queen dynamics are at play in obligate mutualisms..."
"Microbial contributions to ants are not limited to diet enrichment," she says, "and we find evidence for their role in cuticle formation. These multiple lines of evidence are illuminating a more complete picture of ant evolution and providing novel insights into the role that symbiosis plays to promote biological diversity."
UC Davis graduate student Marshall McMunn of the Phil Ward lab is the host. Community ecologist Rachel Vannette, assistant professor (rlvannette@ucdavis.edu), coordinates the weekly seminars. See seminar schedule.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Boudinot presented a talk in Germany at the 9th Dresden Meeting on Insect Phylogeny, hosted by the Senckenberg Institute. In his presentation, "Skeletomuscular Evolution of Male Insect Genitalia, with Emphasis on the Endopterygota," he explained the second chapter of his thesis to an international audience of entomologists, spanning phylogeneticists to anatomists.
At the XXIV Simpósio de Mirmecologia in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil, Boudinot will present preliminary results from his third and final thesis chapter in a symposium titled "Morphology Reloaded: Conquering the Third Dimension of Ant Evolution and Biogeography." His talk is titled "Altered States: Aculeate Anatomy and the Early Evolution of the Formicoidea."
"While this symposium is focused on the application of scanning technologies, such as X-ray computed microtomography, I will be speaking about the evolution of ant morphology through evolutionary time," Boudinot related. He will be presenting results from combined phylogenetic analysis of genome-scale DNA sequence data and a massive dataset of 576 morphological characters scored for 573 species.
"One of the novel aspects of my study is how many fossils I have included (more than 300)," Boudinot said. "The objective of this particular work is to estimate the geological age in which the ants originated, as well as the physical features of the ancestral ant, which I will then use to trace evolutionary and paleoecological patterns to the modern fauna."
Boudinot received the prestigious John Henry Comstock Award in April at the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA) meeting in San Diego. This is the highest graduate student award given by PBESA, which encompasses 11 Western states, U.S. territories, and parts of Canada and Mexico. Its parent organization, the Entomological Society of America (ESA), will honor the six Comstock award winners--one from each branch--at its Nov. 17-20 meeting in St. Louis.
Boudinot, who was praised for his academic record, leadership, public service activities, participation in professional activities, and his publications, is the sixth UC Davis recipient of the Comstock award:
2019: Brendon Boudinot (major professor Phil Ward)
2015: Mohammad-Amir Aghaee (major professor the late Larry Godfrey)
2014: Kelly Hamby (major professor Frank Zalom)
2013: Matan Shelomi (major professor Lynn Kimsey)
2008: Christopher Barker (major professor William Reisen)
1983: Elaine Backus (major professor the late Donald McLean)
Active in PBESA and ESA, Boudinot received multiple “President's Prize” awards for his research presentations at national ESA meetings. He organized the ESA symposium, “Evolutionary and Phylogenetic Morphology,” at the 2018 meeting in Vancouver, B.C. , and delivered a presentation on “Male Ants: Past, Present and Prospects” at the 2016 International Congress of Entomology meeting in Orlando, Fla.
Boudinot served on—and anchored—three of the UC Davis Linnaean Games teams that won national or international ESA championships. The Linnaean Games are a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams.
Boudinot has served as president of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Student Association since 2006, and is active in the campuswide UC Davis Picnic Day; he has co-chaired the department's Picnic Day Committee since 2017.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hölldobler, an evolutionary biologist based at Arizona State University researches the evolution and social organization in ants. He says that colonies that are "true superorganisms, show great cooperation among their nest mates and exhibit fierce aggression against neighboring conspecific colonies and display complex territorial strategies." His experimental and theoretical contributions cover sociobiology, behavioral ecology, and chemical ecology.
Hölldobler and co-author E. O. Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction writing in 1990 for their book, The Ants. They also co-authored The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies and Journey to the Ants: A Journey of Scientific Exploration. Hölldobler is also the author of The Leafcutter Ants.
A native of Bavaria, Germany (born June 25, 1936), he studied biology and chemistry at the University of Würzburg. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the social behavior of the male carpenter ant and their role in the organization of carpenter ant societies.
Hölldobler began his academic career at the University of Frankfurt in 1971 as a professor of zoology. From 1973 to 1990 he served as professor of biology and the Alexander Agassiz professor of zoology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. Hölldobler returned to Germany in 1989 to accept the chair of behavioral physiology and sociobiology at the Theodor-Boveri-Institute of the University of Würzburg.
From 2002 to 2008, Hölldobler was an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. Since his retirement in 2004, he has worked at Arizona State University (ASU) as a professor and research scientist. A Regents' and Foundation professor, he is one of the founders of the Social Insect Research Group (SIRG) and of the Center for Social Dynamics and Complexity.
The seminars are coordinated by medical entomologist/assistant professor Geoffrey Attardo and take place at 4:10 p.m. every Wednesday through June 5 in 122 Briggs Hall. (See list of seminars)
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Doctoral candidate and ant specialist Brendon Boudinot of the Phil Ward lab won the EGSA contest with his REPRESANT design, with illustrations by colleague Eli Sarnat, an alumnus of the Ward lab.
Doctoral candidate and nematologist Corwin Parker of the Steve Nadler lab won the Picnic Day design with his illustration of a bee barbecuing.
And an ant design for a onesie, “My Sister Loves Me,” by doctoral student and ant specialist Jill Oberski of the Ward lab rounds out the winners' circle.
Boudinot, a fourth-year doctoral student and president of EGSA, said the ant featured on his design “is a minor worker of the Drogon ant and described recently by our post-doc Eli Sarnat." Sarnat, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 2009, is now a post-doctorate researcher in the Okinawa Instituite of Science and Technology in the Economo lab. The ant in Boudinot's design is based on Sarnat's work, published in AntWiki and in The Guardian.
Oberski's adult ant is “loosely based on Ochetellus, a mostly-Australian genus.” After admiring an image taken by Alex Wild, also a Phil Ward lab alumnus (doctorate in entomology in 2005) and “I went from there.” Wild, a renowned macro photographer, is the curator of Entomology at the University of Texas/Austin.
The winning T-shirts and other previous winners can be ordered online at https://mkt.com/UCDavisEntGrad/ and also will be available at Briggs Hall on April 21 at the annual UC Davis Picnic Day and future Picnic Days. Doctoral student and medical entomologist Olivia Winokur of the Chris Barker lab, serves as treasurer of EGSA and t-shirt sales coordinator. She may be reached for more information at ocwinokur@ucdavis.edu.
The EGSA is comprised of UC Davis graduate students who study insect systems. Its objectives are to connect students from across disciplines, inform students of and provide opportunities for academic success, and to serve as a bridge between the students and administration. The officers, in addition to Brendon Boudinot, are Emily Bick of the Christian Nansen lab, vice president; Maureen Page of the Neal Williams lab, secretary; Olivia Winokur of the Chris Barker lab, treasurer; and two Graduate Student Association representatives, Charlotte Herbert of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and Nick Booster of the Jay Rosenheim lab.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Sarah Silverman, a doctoral candidate who is studying insect demography at UC Davis with major professor James R. Carey, won a second-place award in her category.
Boudinot, who studies classification and evolution of morphology, delivered a 10-minute oral presentation in the Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity Section on "The Protopodal Theory of Genitalic Evolution in the Hexapoda (Arthropoda: Mandibulata: Pancrustacea)."
Boudinot completed his undergraduate work at the Evergreen State College, Olympia, Wash., and spent a year working as a research technician at the University of Utah before starting his graduate work in 2014 with advisor Phil Ward. He focuses his research on evolution and ecology, approached from the perspective of systematics. “I integrate several lines of inquiry to answer historical evolutionary questions, including morphological and molecular phylogenetics, paleontology, and traditional comparative morphology,” Boudinot related. “I specialize on the skeletomusculature system of the male genitalia of the Hexapoda and the classification of the Formicoidea.”
Silverman gave a 10-minute oral presentation in the Diptera-Mosquitoes category of the Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Section, on “Population as Cohort: Interpreting the Mortality Patterns of Wild-Caught Adult Mosquitoes of Unknown Ages.”
Silverman completed her bachelor's degree in environmental science at McGill University in Montreal. For her undergraduate thesis, she studied the phenology of wild Osmia bees. Her work at UC Davis is in the field of insect demography. “I specifically study insect lifespan in the wild, as well as the the age-structure of insect populations in the wild using an innovative methodological approach: the capture of live-insects in the wild which are then maintained and observed in the lab until death,” she said.
At its annual meetings, the ESA offers graduate students the opportunity to present their research and win coveted prizes. The first-place President's Prize recipient receives a one-year free membership in ESA, a $75 cash prize, and a certificate. The second-place winner receives a one-year free membership in ESA and a certificate.
The oral presentations are evaluated on scientific content (50 percent) and presentation (50 percent). For scientific content, judges score them on introduction and background with pertinent literature cited; objectives clearly stated and concise; materials and methods (study design) clear and concise; results and discussion clear, concise and accurate; and significance of results to field of study. Judges evaluation the presentation on organization, slides and delivery.
Boudinot's previous President's Prizes were for work on the male genitalia of ants, and for providing the first male-based identification material for the ant genera of the New World.
Ants are highly diverse, with over 13,000 known species, Boudinot said. "They are, however, but one stitch in the diversity of all insects, and we are entering a new era for the study of morphology in the 21st century."
The genitalia of male insects are fascinating, he said. "Both male and female insect genitalia are derived from the appendages of a pair of abdominal segments. Evidence from the skeletomusculature indicates that these structures are really legs of a crustacean ancestor that have been modified for numerous reproductive tasks--from copulation and insemination, to singing and silk-spinning."