Emily Meineke, recipient of Early Career Award from Ecological Society of America

Meineke, an assistant professor who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty in 2020, is one of 10 faculty members to receive the honor from the ESA Governing Board. She will be recognized at ESA's Aug. 6-11 meeting in Portland, Ore. 

"This is one of the most prestigious awards an ecologist can receive," said nominator Rachel Vannette, community ecologist and associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. 

“Early Career Fellows are members within eight years of completing their doctoral training (or other terminal degree) who have advanced ecological knowledge and applications and show promise of continuing to make outstanding contributions to a wide range of fields served by ESA,” an ESA  spokesperson announced. “They are elected for five years.” 

Meineke received her bachelor of science degree in environmental science, with a minor in biology, in 2008 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She obtained her doctorate in entomology in 2016 from North Carolina State University (NCU), studying with major professors Steven Frank and Robert Dunn. She wrote her dissertation on "Understanding the Consequences of Urban Warming for Street Trees and Their Insect Pests."

At NCU, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) awarded her with the Science to Achieve Results (STAR) fellowship. As an EPA STAR Fellow, Meineke pioneered research characterizing the effects of urban heat islands on insect herbivores. And, as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard University Herbaria, Meineke studied how urbanization and climate change have affected global plant–insect relationships over the past 100-plus years.  

At UC Davis, the Meineke laboratory "leverages natural history collections, citywide experiments, and observations to characterize effects of recent anthropogenic change on plant–insect herbivore interactions," said Vannette. Meineke has received funding from the National Science Foundation's Faculty Early Career Development (NSF-CAREER) Program; USDA's Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI); and the UC Davis Hellman Fellows Program.

Hellman Award. In 2022, Meineke was named one of 12 recipients of the UC Davis Hellman Fellows program. Her project, “Assessing Preservation of Chemical Compounds in Pressed Plants," focuses on whether herbarium specimens collected over hundreds of years harbor chemical compounds that reveal mechanisms responsible for changing insect-plant interactions. 

"In particular, the project will reveal extent to which herbarium specimens that are dried and stored continue to harbor key chemicals—such as defensive chemicals against insects created by plants themselves and pesticides—in their leaves," Meineke related.  "This project will inform my lab's future investigations into effects of urbanization and climate change on insect herbivores." 

Meineke is also coordinating her department's seminars for the 2022-23 academic year.

ESA President Sharon Collinge noted that "This year's Fellows (7) and Early Career Fellows (10) have made tremendous scientific and societal impacts through their work and are highly regarded in their subdisciplines. Their accomplishments reflect the breadth and depth of our field, and its relevance to pressing societal concerns. I am glad that ESA is home to such a dedicated group.”  (See news release)

Holly Moeller of UC Santa Barbara, a theoretical ecologist who uses mathematical and empirical approaches to understand acquired metabolism, is among the 10 Early Career Fellows, all selected for advancing the science of ecology and showing promise for continuous contributions. Others are Karen Bailey, University of Colorado, Natalie Christian,  University of Louisville; Mary Donovan, Arizona State University; Meredith Holgerson,  Cornell University; Allison Louthan,  Kansas State University; Sparkle Malone,  Yale University; and Maria Natalia Umaña,  University of Michigan.

Rick Karban. UC Davis Distinguished Professor Richard "Rick" Karban of the Department of Entomology and Nematology was elected an ESA fellow in 2017 for "pivotal work in developing an ecological understanding of plant-herbivore interactions, with particularly notable contributions to the ecology of induced plant responses to herbivory and plant volatile signaling."

ESA, founded in 1915 aims to promote ecological science by improving communication among ecologists; raise the public's level of awareness of the importance of ecological science; increase the resources available for the conduct of ecological science; and ensure the appropriate use of ecological science in environmental decision making by enhancing communication between the ecological community and policy-makers.

Related Resource:
Emily Meineke Helped Spearhead Harvard Museum of Natural History's Thoreau Project (Department News, April 5, 2022)

Grace Horne of the Emily Meineke lab

The doctoral students are Grace Horne, who studies with urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor; Alexia “Lexie" Martin, who studies with community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor; and Marshall Nakatani, who studies with bee scientist Brian Johnson, associate professor. 

The undergraduate recipient is entomology major Mingxuan “Gary” Ge, a research scholar in the campuswide  Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB), co-founded and administered by faculty in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. He is advised by community ecologist and professor Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (and a RSPIB co-founder), and UC Davis distinguished professor and lepidopterist Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology.

Each recipient will receive a five-year fellowship providing three years of financial support, inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000. 

The NSF-GRFP is the most prestigious award of its type. The annual acceptance rates are about 16 percent from among more than 12,000 annual applicants. The awards are given to outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated “the potential to be high-achieving scientists and engineers early in their careers.”

Grace Horne, Meineke Lab
Grace Horne, who grew up in Marlborough, N.H., is a 2021 graduate of Colby College, Waterville, Maine, where she double-majored in biology (evolution and ecology), and environmental science (conservation biology), receiving magna cum laude (with distinction) in both majors. Horne, who joined the Meineke lab in 2021, studies plant-insect interactions, urban ecology, global change biology, natural history and community science.

Horne submitted this successful proposal:

Working title: "Natural History Collections for Backcasting Plant-Insect Interactions in a Changing World."

Description: "Herbivory by caterpillars can have negative impacts on plant survival, growth, and reproduction. Interactions between plants and caterpillars, which are both metabolically tied to temperature, are particularly consequential for ecosystems. However, investigations of how species have and will interact under a changing climate are lacking. In particular, insects are in decline in many areas, but the downstream effects of insect herbivore losses and simultaneous climate change on plants are unclear. Thus, I propose to combine modern observations, a controlled experiment, and data cached in natural history collections to investigate effects of climate change on plant-insect interactions in a biodiversity hotspot."

Lexie Martin of the Rachel Vannette lab

Lexie Martin, a native of Cypress, Texas, is a 2021 graduate  of the University of Texas, Austin, where she received her  bachelor of science degree in biology, with a concentration in ecology, evolution and behavior, and a bachelor of science and arts in chemistry. She graduated with research distinction and as a dean's honored graduate. Martin's research interests include bees, mutualism, bee-microbe interactions, bee diversity, plant-pollination interactions, conservation and bee health. Her career plans are to pursue a professor position at a university, to continue researching bee-microbe interactions and other factors affecting bee health. Martin submitted this successful proposal 

Title: "Effects of Intraspecifically Transmitted Versus Environmentally Acquired Microbes on Bees."  

Description:"Although most social organisms can obtain microbes through intraspecific and environmental acquisition routes, few studies have directly compared how microbial acquisition route affects host health. In this project, I am investigating how microbes in the bee core gut microbiota vs. microbes obtained from flowers establish within the gut and affect the overall health of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) and blue orchard bees (Osmia lignaria). I selectively introduced microbes obtained through each route to bees and will be measuring establishment within the gut, survivorship, fitness, and lipid stores. The results of this project will be applicable to other social organisms, as well as relevant to the management of commercial bees and crops."

Marshall Nakatani of the Brian Johnson lab

Marshall Nakatani, from Lansdale, Pa., is a 2021 graduate of George Washington Univeristy, where he received his bachelor of science degree in biology, with a concentration in cell and molecular biology. He is in his second year as a UC Davis doctoral student. Nakatani's general interests include eusociality, the division of labor in social insects, and how genetics and the environment interact to determine phenotype. His career plans: to continue working in academia.  

Nakatani submitted this winning proposal:  

Gary Ge, Yang Lab and Shapiro Lab

Gary Ge of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology who studies with Professor Louie Yang and UC Davis Distinguished Professor Art Shapiro.

In his project, he uses the American Apollo butterfly (Parnassius clodius) as a model to study how microclimatic conditions affect cold-adapted insects. P. clodius, a white butterfly, is found at high elevations in western United States (Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Canada) and in British Columbia, Canada.  

“The genus Parnassius is prone to global warming due to its affinity for alpine and arctic habitats, and several species are considered to be threatened,” Ge wrote in his winning proposal. “The American Apollo has habitats ranging from coastal forests to above the tree line. Thus, they experience very different combinations of microclimatic variations depending on time and location. Unlike most other butterflies, their larvae develop under cold macroclimatic temperatures and demonstrate active behavioral thermoregulation. This makes them highly dependent and consequently sensitive to microclimatic temperatures. In addition, the adults are poor dispersers, limiting gene flow between spatially close populations. Their larvae are also likely the sole insect herbivore of the host plant species, thus microhabitat identification is easy in the field.” 

“I hypothesize that mid-elevation populations of P. clodius have the best cold tolerance as overwintering eggs," Ge wrote in his proposal. "The main factor behind this is snow cover. Snow cover is known to provide significant insulation to whatever is underneath, usually creating higher microclimatic temperatures under the snow than above. At mid-elevations, the winter temperatures are lower than at low elevations, and the snow cover is supposedly less and more unstable compared to higher elevations. This means the mid-elevation populations are likely exposed to the coldest winter temperature, and have locally adapted to it.” 

A recent update: After data analysis, Ge and Yang found significant difference between supercooling points of the eggs from two P. clodius populations and it is in line with Ge's hypothesis. The higher elevation population has higher SCP (less cold tolerant), and the lower elevation population has lower SCP (more cold tolerant).”  

Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations across central California for the last 50 years, notes that “Parnassians are a group of cold-adapted Northern Hemisphere butterflies that are becoming increasingly important as objects of physiological, ecological and evolutionary study. They are only likely to grow more important in the context of climate change. Thus, Gary's study is very timely and should attract plenty of attention! It is demanding given the rigorous conditions in which they breed and develop, and he is likely to learn a lot that will facilitate future lab and field studies.”

Ge's project also factored in his winning the 2023 Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America. 

GRFP's Mission. GRFP aims to “ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States,” according to its website, and to “broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans.” Applicants must be pursuing full-time research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education at accredited U.S. institutions."  The list of recipients is here.

Biology professor Terry McGlynn of California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), will discuss “Lessons about Thermal Ecology from Rainforest Ants” at the first in a series of spring seminars hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

His seminar begins at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, April 5 in 122 Briggs Hall. The seminar also will be virtual. The Zoom link:  https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.

A social, preceding the seminar, is set from 3:30 to 4:10 in 158 Briggs.

"As the world is getting hotter, we are now urgently focused on understanding on how climate change affects insect populations and communities," McGlynn says in his abstract. "Many insects in tropical rainforests are accustomed to operating at the margins of thermal capabilities. I present a series of experiments conducted on tropical ants to illustrate phenomena that are critical to our understanding of how insects will continue to thrive on this warming planet.'

McGlynn, both an ecologist and an entomologist, directs the California Desert Studies Consortium, which operates the Desert Studies Center, a large field station in the Mojave Desert. He is an appointed research associate in the Department of Entomology, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

McGlynn focuses on tropical ecology, biology of detrital food webs; behavioral and community ecology of rainforest ants; and undergraduate natural history education. 

"We do research to learn how insects respond to environmental challenges, he writes on his lab website,  https://leaflitter.org/. "In this era of rapid environmental change, we need scientific knowledge and evidence-based policies to protect human welfare and biodiversity. Our climate crisis is complicated by urbanization, the spread of non-indigenous species, and changes in food web structure."

"Our research agenda addresses these concerns while preparing the next generation of scientists to solve problems using equitable and just practices within and beyond our academic community."

To increase the accessibility of evidence-based teaching practices, he wrote The Chicago Guide to College Science Teaching (University of Chicago Press, 2020), which emphasizes kind and equitable teaching.

McGlynn has led several National Science Foundation-funded projects to support international research opportunities for undergraduates, and has served as the director of Undergraduate Research at CSUDH. He is a 2022 Fellow of the Earth Leadership Program, and in 2021, received the CSUDH Presidential Outstanding Professor Award. He serves on the editorial board of Biotropica and is an associate editor of Insectes Sociaux.

McGlynn writes a blog, Small Pond Science tweets at @hormiga.  He received his bachelor's degree in biology in 1993 from Occidental College  and his doctorate in 1999 in environmental, population and organismic biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. 

Seminar coordinator Emily Meineke, urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor, announced the spring seminars earlier this week. For technical issues (Zoom), she may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu.

Emily Meineke, seminar coordinator

Seminar coordinator Emily Meineke, urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor, has announced the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's spring seminars. 

The seminars begin Wednesday, April 5 and will continue on Wednesdays through June 7. All in-person seminars will be in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, starting at 4:10 p.m. The seminars also will be virtual. The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672 

A social from 3:30 to 4:10 in 158 Briggs will precede each seminar. 

The topics range from ants to caterpillars to honey bees:

Wednesday, April 5
Terry McGlynn
Professor, California State University, Dominguez Hills
Title: “Lessons About Thermal Ecology from Rainforest Ants”

Wednesday, April 12
Christopher Mayack
Research entomologist, USDA-ARS 
Title: “Chemical Biomarkers and the Physiological Underpinning of Honey Bee Health Decline” 

Wednesday, April 19
No seminar

Wednesday, April 26 (Zoom only) 
Sam Jaffe 
Founder and director of The Caterpillar Lab
Title: “Using Native Caterpillars, Their Ecological Connections, and Novel Outreach Tools to Showcase the Importance of Biodiversity”

Wednesday, May 3
John Hargrove 
Senior research fellow and professor emeritus of mathematical sciences
Stellenbosch University, Western Cape, South Africa
Title: “Tsetse, Trypanosomiasis and Climate Change: What Can We Learn from Field Data Collected in the Zambezi Valley of Zimbabwe?” 

Wednesday, May 10 
Irene Newton
Professor of biology, Indiana University, Bloomington
Title: “Friends with Benefits: Protective Microbial Symbioses in the Honey Bee”

Wednesday, May 17 (Zoom only)
Paulo Vieira 
Molecular biologist USDA-ARS
Title: “Beech Leaf Disease: an Emergent Threat to Beech Forest Ecosystems in North America” 

Wednesday, May 24
Katie Thompson-Peer 
Assistant professor, School of Biological Sciences, UC Irvine
Title: “Cellular Mechanisms of Dendrite Regeneration after Neuron Injury”

Wednesday, May 31
No seminar

Wednesday, June 7
Jill Oberski 
Doctoral candidate, Phil Ward lab, UC Davis
Exit seminar: “Phylogenetics and Biogeography of the Pyramid Ants”

For technical issues, Meineke may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu.