See Science Express: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/09/10/science.1245993.full.pdf

Scott Carroll (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

The paper appears in the Sept. 11 in Science Express, which makes important papers available to readers before they appear in the journal Science.  The first-of-its-kind study will appear in a November edition of the journal.

 “Evolutionary biology is often overlooked in the study of global challenges,” said lead author Scott Carroll of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and the Institute for Contemporary Evolution, also in Davis.  “By looking at humanity's problems across the domains of nature conservation, food production and human health, it is clear that we need to strengthen evolutionary biology throughout the disciplines and develop a shared language among them.”

The study, “Applying Evolutionary Biology to Address Global Challenges,” calls attention to how evolutionary biology techniques can be used to address challenges in agriculture, medicine and environmental sciences, said Carroll, noting that these techniques, although seemingly unrelated, work within a similar set of evolutionary processes.

“These techniques range from limiting the use of antibiotics to avoid resistant bacteria and breeding crops with desired benefits such as flood tolerant rice, to less commonly implemented strategies such as gene therapy to treat human disease, and planting non-native plants to anticipate climate change,” Carroll said.

“A particular worry is the unaddressed need for management of evolution that spans multiple sectors, such as occurs in the spread of new infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance genes between natural, human health and agricultural systems.”

Co-lead researcher and biologist Peter Søgaard Jørgensen of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, agrees. “Many of the global challenges we face today have common biological solutions,” he said, “but we can tackle them effectively only if we are aware of successes and progress in all fields using evolutionary biology as a tool.”

In their paper, the nine researchers—two from UC Davis, one from UCLA and six from universities in Denmark, New Zealand, Maine, Minnesota, Washington state and Arizona--crafted a graphic wheel divided into three sectors, food, health and environment and cited the challenges that link them together, including rapid revolution and phenotype environment mismatch in more slowly reproducing or threatened species.

Carroll said the underlying causes of societal challenges such as food security, emerging disease and biodiversity loss “have more in common than we think.”

“Humans, pathogens and all other life on earth adapt to their environment through evolution, but some adaptation happens too quickly and some too slowly to benefit human society,” Carroll said. “Current efforts to overcome societal challenges are likely only to create larger problems if evolutionary biology is not swiftly and widely implementedto achieve sustainable development.”

Society faces two sorts of challenges from evolution, the research team said. “The first occurs when pests and pathogens we try to kill or control persist or even prosper because the survivors and their offspring can resist our actions,” Carroll said. “The second challenge arises when species we value adapt too slowly, including humans.”

Although practices in health, agriculture and environmental conservation differ, each field can better target challenges using the same applications of evolutionary biology, they said.

For example, when a farmer plants a crop that is susceptible to pests, he might actually help the agricultural community as a whole by slowing down evolution of pesticide resistance, the authors said, citing an applied evolutionary biology tactic used in agriculture.

Planting pest-friendly crops has been used in the United States with good results, the team said. Farmers planting these crops slow the evolution of resistance to genetically modified corn and other crops. Pests then reproduce in abundance eating the susceptible plants, and when a rare resistant mutant matures on a toxic diet, it is most likely to mate with a susceptible partner, keeping susceptibility alive. This approach works to suppress the unwanted evolution on the whole, but farmers will have sacrificed a short-term gain for the long-term good.

Similar innovative solutions exist across the fields of medicine and environmental conservation, they said.

“This is an example of how implementing applied evolutionary biology without a plan for regulatory measures may come at short-term costs to some individuals that others may avoid.” Jorgensen said. “By using regulatory tools, decision makers such as local communities and governments play a crucial role in ensuring that everybody gains from the benefits of using evolutionary biology to realize the long-term goals of increasing food security, protecting biodiversity and improving human health and well-being.”

Other co-authors are Michael T. Kinnison, University of Maine; Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington; R. Ford Denison, University of Minnesota; Peter Gluckman, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Thomas B. Smith, UCLA; Sharon Strauss, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology and Center for Population Biology, and Bruce Tabashnik, University of Arizona.

Carroll is an affiliate of the Sharon Lawler lab,  UC Davis Entomology and Nematology. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Australian-American Fulbright Commission.

Contact:
Scott Carroll
Email: spcarroll@ucdavis.edu
Phone: (530) 297-6980
Cell: (530) 902-8267

James F. Campbell

The award, sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection, recognizes entomologists who are making significant contributions to agriculture.

Campbell is a research entomologist with the  Center for Grain and Animal Health Research Service of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Manhattan, Kansas. 

He received two degrees from Rutgers University, the State University of New Jersey: his bachelor's degree in biology in 1988 and master's degree in entomology in 1994. He went on to enroll in the UC Davis graduate program, obtaining his doctorate in 1999. His major professor was Harry Kaya, now emeritus professor of entomology and nematology.

Campbell joined USDA-ARS in 1999 and since then has conducted research focused on the spatial distribution and movement patterns of stored-product insects in food facility landscapes, improving the implementation and interpretation of insect monitoring programs, and determining the impact of different management tactics on pest populations within commercial food facilities.

Campbell honored his major professor during the Harry Kaya Tribute Seminar at the 2011 ESA meeting in Reno.

Kelly Hamby working in the Zalom lab. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Hamby received her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis in March 2014, studying with major professor Frank Zalom. She has just accepted a position with the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Starting in November, she will be an assistant professor of sustainable agroecosystems and will be involved in integrated pest management research, extension, and teaching.

Hamby's expertise includes sustainable integrated pest management strategies for various insect pests. Her dissertation research, titled "Biology and Pesticide Eesistance Management of Drosophila suzukii in Coastal California Berries," covered monitoring, yeast associations, chronobiology, chronotoxicity of insecticides, and the implications of this work to managing a recent invader, the spotted wing drosophila.

The Comstock award is the highest honor given to a graduate student. Hamby will be one of six honored at the national meeting. The others are:

• Eric Bohnenblust, Eastern Branch
• Rebecca Dew, International Branch
• Michael McCarville, North Central Branch
• Amber Dawn Tripodi, Southeastern Branch
• Nathan Lord, Southwestern Branch

Zalom praised Hamby's "established record of excellence in research, mentorship, and leadership."  Kelly also received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to study molecular mechanisms of target site resistance to insecticides in this system. In 2011, she was awarded the Lillian and Alex Feir Graduate Student Travel Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, or Molecular Biology from the ESA Pacific Branch.

Hamby received all three of her academic degrees from UC Davis, compiling a near perfect grade point average. While studying for her bachelor's degree in environmental toxicology, specializing in ecotoxicology, she completed the integrated studies honors program and graduated with highest honors, making the dean's honors list.

Hamby has published as a lead author in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals including Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Experimental and Applied Acarology, Journal of Economic Entomology, and PLoS ONE. She co-authored recently published articles in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics (the open-access journal of the Genetics Society of America), Environmental Entomology, and Acta Horticulturae, and articles submitted to the Journal of Applied Entomology and PLOS Biology.

A member of ESA since 2009, with membership in both the Plant-Insect Ecosystems section and the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicolgy sections, Hamby has attended and presented at four ESA annual meetings, and two PBESA meetings. She was invited to present papers in symposia at both the 2012 and 2013 National ESA meetings, and in a symposium at the 2012 PBESA meeting.  Hamby has also presented papers at two international conferences including an invited symposium paper at the XXIX International Congress of Entomology in Daegu, Republic of Korea.

Zalom, an integrated pest management specialist and distinguished professor at UC Davis, is president of the 7000-member ESA and will preside over the Portland, Ore., meeting, ESA's 62nd annual meeting.

This is the second consecutive year that a UC Davis graduate student has received the Comstock award. Last year Matan Shelomi, a doctoral candidate who studies with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, received the award. The list of UC Davis recipients:

2014: Kelly Hamby
2013: Matan Shelomi
2008: Christopher Barker
1983: Elaine Backus

PBESA is comprised of 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), parts of Canada  and Mexico, and seven U.S. territories.

The award memorializes John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), an American entomologist, researcher and educator known for his studies of scale insects and butterflies and moths, which provided the basis for systematic classification. Comstock was a member of the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for most of his career,  except for his service as a chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1879-81).

Diane Ullman is the 2014 recipient of ESA's distinguished teaching award. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

This is the highest honor that the 7000-member ESA presents to its outstanding teachers. Ullman earlier was named the recipient of the outstanding teaching award from the Pacific Branch of ESA.

The ESA governing board announced the news today (Sept. 10). Ullman will receive the award at the ESA's 62nd annual meeting, to take place Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore.  

Ullman chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2004-2005, and served as an associate dean for undergraduate academic programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. from 2005 to 2014.  There she led curriculum and program development, student recruitment and outreach, and she administrated all undergraduate academic activities.

Ullman is known for innovative, multidisciplinary teaching strategies that connect science and art programs that mentor the next generation of scientists and help undergraduates succeed. Key examples are the Art/Science Fusion Program (using experiential learning to enhance scientific literacy), the Career Discovery Group Program (training mentors to help students explore careers and select majors), and the national Thrips-Tospovirus Educational Network (training graduate students and postdoctoral scholars to mentor new scientists).

Ullman's research revolves around insects that transmit plant pathogens, in particular plant viruses. She is best known for advancing international knowledge of interactions between thrips and tospoviruses and aphids and citrus tristeza virus. Her contributions have played a fundamental role in developing novel strategies for management of insects and plant viruses. She leads a $3.75 million Coordinated Agricultural Project, and has authored more than 100 refereed publications (cited 3,660 times, h-index of 32).

The UC Davis professor was named an ESA fellow in 2011. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the USDA Higher Education Western Regional Award for Excellence in College and University Teaching (1993), the UC Davis Chancellor's Achievement Award for Diversity and Community (2008), and the 2014 Distinguished Teaching Award from ESA's Pacific Branch.

Ullman received her bachelor's degree in horticulture from the University of Arizona in 1976 and her doctorate  in entomology from UC Davis in 1985. She began her career in 1987 at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, relocating in 1995 to UC Davis' Department of Entomology and Nematology. Ullman also holds a joint appointment with the graduate programs of the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the Department of Plant Pathology. 

“Dr. Ullman is a world-renowned and highly respected teacher, but she is an outstanding mentor, researcher and administrator who combines innovation, energy, talent and dedication to help students learn, retain that knowledge, and succeed in class, college and life. They cannot praise her enough, and neither can we,” the team of nominators wrote. 

Ullman excels at developing new courses, programs and teaching methods, using traditional and non-traditional means. She employs a unique multidisciplinary approach to teaching. A key example is her Art/Science Fusion Program (which has drawn national and international attention, including a TEDx talk, ESA and AAAS presentations, and scores of speaking invitations all over the world. One of her 2013 presentations was to Lleida University, Spain, where she guided them in setting up an art/science fusion program.

The Art/Science Fusion Program, developed initially in the Department of Entomology and Nematology, is an innovative teaching program that crosses college boundaries and uses experiental learning to enhance scientific literary for students from all disciplines. Her program promotes environmental literacy with three undergraduate courses, a robust community outreach program, and sponsorship of the Leonardo Art Science Evening Rendezvous (LASERs).  

An example of her innovative teaching:  her Entomology 001 students researched honey bees, learned and crafted mosaic ceramics, and then installed the project in the department's honey bee garden. Her ENT 001 and her freshman seminar on Plants in Art and Science led to 12 permanently installed public art projects and one exhibition at the Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts. These projects illustrating student learning at UC Davis, have attracted national attention, including a 16-page article in the November 2013 edition of Works and Conversations.

The Art/Science Fusion Program drew praise for its robust collaboration with the UC Davis Arboretum and its work with the GATEways (Gardens, Art and the Environment) Project, a campuswide project aimed at increased accessibility to UC Davis and its academic enterprise. One of her most visible and “wow!” projects is the 2,500 pound mosaic artwork, Nature's Gallery, showcasing the interaction of insects and plants. A product of her ENT 001 class and community outreach, it was displayed at the U.S. Botanical Garden in Washington D.C. and at the California State Fair and is now permanently installed in the UC Davis Arboretum.

Ullman's nominators singled her out for special praise:

1. Her teaching methods and influence are not just in the classroom. As the associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences (student population 6000), Ullman leads the curriculum and program development, student recruitment and outreach; administrates all undergraduate academic policies ranging from orientation of incoming students; advises and assists students in academic difficulty; and developed campuswide policies with a wide range of academic committees, taskforces and councils at college and campus levels, including the Council of Associate Deans, Undergraduate Dean's Council, and Undergraduate Advising Council.

2. Career Discovery Group. Ullman co-founded the Career Discovery Group Program (180-380 freshmen/year since 2006). This program, essential in training mentors, and obtaining college and private funding for program support and expansion, helps students explore career possibilities, select majors and tailor their academic program to enhance their success. Recently, her leadership resulted in garnering college and private funding for expansion of the program to Educational Opportunity Program students (first in their family to attend college, under-represented minorities) and she contributes throughout the academic year to training and managing the mentors for this program. Undergraduates participating in the program have a faster time to degree, higher GPAs and are less likely to be in academic difficulty.

3. National Online Class. In 2013, Ullman co-directed development and teaching of a national online class on scientific mentoring (Thrips-Tospovirus Educational Network or TTEN) to students and postdoctoral scholars at seven institutions. This effort involved developing an Adobe Connect virtual classroom, a Google Plus site for sharing materials, videos and resources and preparation of curriculum. In addition to this formal teaching, she also trains undergraduates and graduate students to do research in her laboratory. As a researcher, she is best known for translating advances in understanding insect vector-plant virus relationships into novel strategies for preventing vector population growth and epidemics of insect transmitted pathogens. Her success let to a $3.75 million grant; she is the principal investigator.

4. New Techniques and Strategies. Ullman invests a great deal of energy in delivering content and exploring innovative strategies for teaching. In 2012, she revised her strategy for teaching ENT 001, using more online resources, collaborative learning techniques and in-class testing strategies that allowed her to “flip” the classroom and increase discussion, questions and interactive activities in a highly successful project. She continues to innovate and integrate art and science in her teaching, stressing visual literacy and creative confidence.

Unsolicited and anonymous comments from students included:

• “Professor Ullman is wonderful! She is extremely enthusiastic about what she is teaching.”
• “Great professor. She is passionate about what she does and very enthusiastic about insects.”

(Editor's Note: Richard Levine of ESA contributed to this report.)

Related link:
Watch the TEDx talk on YouTube by Diane Ullman, co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program.