- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Niño currently works with Professor Christina Grozinger, director of the PSU Center for Pollinator Research. Niño holds a postdoctoral fellowship funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA).
“We are excited about Elina joining the Bee Biology program at UC Davis,” said Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “We have been in a rebuilding mode for the past few years and Elina joins the team of Dr. Neal Williams, pollination ecology and bee biology with emphasis on foraging behavior; and Dr. Brian Johnson, genetics, behavior, evolution, and health of honey bees. Dr. Niño will conduct problem-solving research focused on honey bees and those crops in need of pollination services.”
“In addition, with the establishment of the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, adjacent to our bee biology facility, Dr. Niño will be able to effectively provide outreach to backyard beekeepers that represent a growing enterprise in California," Parrella said. "In addition to current bee biology faculty, Elina will be supported by Dr. Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology who studies bumble bee behavior and systematics, and, of course, Dr. Eric Mussen whom she is replacing. We are pleased that Dr. Mussen has agreed to remain active in an emeritus capacity and will be advising Dr. Niño on both her extension program and research activities.”
Said Grozinger: “Dr. Niño is internationally recognized for her work on queen biology, and has collaborated broadly with several key honey bee researchers in the United States, including David Tarpy, Peter Teal, and Jerry Hayes, as well as researchers in Israel, Europe and Australia.”
Niño said she is very excited to start working closely with the California beekeepers and growers to develop sustainable approaches to bee management. "The UC Davis bee lab has such a long, outstanding contribute to this great program,” she said.
“Elina is a very accomplished scientist,” said Mussen. “Her research involves the reproductive processes involved in queen bee mating, including the impacts of oviduct manipulation, insemination volume and insemination substances. The induced changes include measurable behavioral, physiological and molecular alterations that occur, including differences in behavioral interactions between queens and worker bees.” Niño said considering her interests in honey bee queen health she anticipates fruitful collaborations with the California queen breeders.
In her research, Niño demonstrated that different components of the mating process (oviduct manipulation, insemination volume, and insemination substance) drive different post-mating changes in honey bee queens, Grozinger said. “Furthermore, she showed that queens signal their mating status and mating quality to worker bees through their pheromones, and workers preferentially respond to well-mated queens.”
As the recipient of prestigious USDA-NIFA postdoctoral fellowship, Niño expanded her program to study the socioeconomic factors affecting the success of local queen breeding programs, and spearheaded the annual PSU Honey Bee Queen Rearing Workshop, Grozinger said.
Niño received her bachelor's degree in animal science from Cornell University in 2003; her master's degree in entomology at North Carolina State University and her doctorate at PSU in Niño has a varied entomology background. While working on her bachelor's degree at Cornell, she was involved in studies on darkling beetle control in poultry houses, pan-trapped horse flies, and surveyed mosquitoes in New York state. While working toward her master's degree at North Carolina State University, she studied dung beetle nutrient cycling and its effect on grass growth, effects of methoprene (insect grown regular) on dung beetles in field and laboratory settings, and assisted in a workshop on forensic entomology.
As a USDA/NIFA postdoctoral fellow, Niño is contributing to honey bee stock improvement programs through her research on proteins in honey bee semen. She also is cooperatively reviewing the effects of Israeli Acute Bee Paralysis Virus, Deformed Wing Virus and Nosema on honey bees on a molecular level.
A member of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), Niño received a number of high honors as an entomology graduate student. She won the coveted John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award from the Eastern Branch of ESA in 2013; first place in a poster student competition for the President's Prize at the ESA Indianapolis meeting in 2006, and also a first-place poster award at the North Carolina Entomological Society's Raleigh meeting in 2006.
Other awards include the 2012 Student Recognition Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, Toxicology, and Molecular Biology from the International Congress on Insect Neurochemistry and Neurophysiology; 2012 PSU Alumni Association Dissertation Award; 2011 Lillian and Alex Feir Graduate Student Travel Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry or Molecular Biology, Entomological Foundation; 2011 Eastern Apicultural Society Student Award; 2011 Lorenzo Langstroth Fellowship, PSU Center for Pollinator Research; 2011 Michael E. Duke Memorial Scholarship, PSU Department of Entomology; and 2010 Sahakian Family Fund for Ag Research Travel Award, PSU College of Ag Sciences.
Niño placed first in a student paper presentation at the 2008 American Bee Research Conference in Sacramento, and received a 2007 scholarship from the Foundation for the Preservation of Honey Bees, Sacramento. The North Carolina Entomological Society named her the 2006 Outstanding MS Student of the Year.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Gilik graduated this year with double degrees--a bachelor's degree in entomology and a bachelor's degree in neurobiology, physiology and behavior--in a five-year program.
“Susan's undergraduate GPA is 3.589,” said Professor Sharon Lawler, who nominated her for the award. “She completed an impressive 231 units, in addition to arriving with 40 Advanced Placement (AP) units.”
Gilik, who grew up in San Diego, traces her interest in entomology to her childhood. “My mom tells me that I have been preoccupied with the little animals since I could walk,” Gilik said. “She said that I would sit and watch the little guys for hours. As I grew, I got into rearing caterpillars. My mother was a hobbyist rose breeder and grew many plants. She was very supportive and when we found caterpillars chomping her plants, she let me keep them and feed them her plants.”
While rearing caterpillars, young Susan marveled over their physiology and development. “From the delicate and difficult task of shedding their skins to the dissolution of their internal workings during metamorphis, it seemed difficult being an insect. Later, when I learned more about evolution and ecology, it started to hit me how important insects are for pollination, in the spread of disease and as food for other animals.”
“I loved the entomology classes here ... there were so many on such varying topics! I really enjoyed that I could learn both about physiology and ecology/evolution of insects. It was great to be taught by professors who had a lot of experience--and fun stories--on the topics they were teaching.”
In addition to her studies, Gilik served as a student firefighter with the UC Davis Fire Department. “During high school I became interested in becoming a firefighter," she said in a quote on the department's website. "I found out about the program after coming to Davis and saw that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “
Her favorite part of the student firefighter program? "I love the camaraderie. Everyone puts in an enormous effort to help each other out.”
This summer Gilik is assisting with the David Rizzo laboratory research in the Sierra Nevada on forest fire effects on plant pathogens--“how native pathogens of conifers are affected by native fire regime,” she said. Rizzo is a professor in the Department of Plant Pathology. His research focuses on the ecology and management of exotic and native forest tree diseases, primarily in California ecosystems.
Her future goals? “I want to try out as many different things as I can before making any decisions and going back to school to start my career.”
Recent recipients of Outstanding Entomology Undergraduate Awards:
2012: Ivana Li
2011: Danielle Wishon
In addition, Stephanie Calloway received the 2012 Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Senior in Entomology and Ivana Li won the 2013 Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Senior in Entomology.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Titled “The Role of EETs in Pressure-induced Vasoconstriction,” the podcast explains the ground-breaking research involving the role of EETs (Epoxyeicosatrienoic acids) in regulating the myogenic tone in a skeletal muscle small resistance artery. The research, done on rodents, could lead to better control of high blood pressure in humans.
In the podcast, associate editor Mordy Blaustein interviews lead author An Huang (New York Medical College) and expert David Harder (Medical College of Wisconsin) about what Blaustein describes as “an innovative knock-out mouse model, responses of different types of vascular beds to various vasodilatory agents, and the importance of basic studies on SEH inhibitors as the backbone of clinical trials.”
EETs possess cardioprotective properties that are “catalyzed by soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) to dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acids (DHETs) that lack vasoactive property,” the seven-member scientific team wrote in their research, Soluble epoxide hydrolase-dependent regulation of myogenic response and blood pressure, published April 15 in the American Journal of Physiology-Heart and Circulatory Physiology.
“To date, the role of sEH in the regulation of myogenic response of resistant arteries, a key player in the control of blood pressure, remains unknown,” they wrote in their abstract. “To this end, experiments were conducted on sEH-knockout (KO) mice, wild-type (WT) mice, and endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS)-KO mice treated with t-TUCB, a sEH inhibitor, for 4 wk. sEH-KO and t-TUCB-treated mice displayed significantly lower blood pressure, associated with significantly increased vascular EETs and ratio of EETs/DHETs. Pressure-diameter relationships were assessed in isolated and cannulated gracilis muscle arterioles. All arterioles constricted in response to increases in transmural pressure from 60 to 140 mmHg. The myogenic constriction was significantly reduced, expressed as an upward shift of pressure-diameter curve, in arterioles of sEH-KO and t-TUCB-treated eNOS-KO mice compared with their controls. Removal of the endothelium, or treatment of the vessels with PPOH, an inhibitor of EET synthase, restored the attenuated pressure-induced constriction to the levels similar to those observed in their controls but had no effects on control vessels. No difference was observed in the myogenic index, or in the vascular expression of eNOS, CYP2C29 (EET synthase), and CYP4A (20-HETE synthase) among these groups of mice. In conclusion, the increased EET bioavailability, as a function of deficiency/inhibition of sEH, potentiates vasodilator responses that counteract pressure-induced vasoconstriction to lower blood pressure.”
Lead author An Huang is with the Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla.
In addition to Huang and Hammock, who has a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center, the co-authors are Sung Hee Hwang of the Hammock lab; Dong Sun, Department of Physiology, New York Medical College, Valhalla; Azita J. Cuevas and Michal L. Schwartzman, both with the Department of Pharmacology, New York Medical College, Valhalla; and Katherine Gotlinger, New York University School of Medicine, Tuxedo.
Grants from the by National Institutes of Health supported the research.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Katie Wen-Chin Lee and Kristina Ho entered their poster in a competition at the 48th annual meeting of the California-Nevada chapter of the American Fisheries Society.
In addition, Sean Goodside recently led a team of three students who studied the response of juvenile green sturgeon to water flows. “He obtained the records of all three observers and forged them into a nice report,” said Peter Klimley adjunct professor in the Wildlife and Fisheries Biology Program, in an email. “I anticipate that the poster and report will eventually become scientific papers, a real credit to all three undergraduate students.”
The judging of student oral presentations and posters took place in Sacramento. This was the 14th consecutive year that the Northern California District of the American Institute of Fishery Research Biologists (AIFRB) has judged the student work. The competition drew nine student papers and six posters.
Katie Lee and Kristina Ho are both animal biology majors who plan to graduate this summer. Sean Goodside received his bachelor's degree in June.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology serves as the master advisor of Animal Biology and Elvira Galvan Hack as the undergraduate advisor.
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About Animal Biology (from website)
The Animal Biology (ABI) major offers students training in the biological and natural sciences as they apply to animals. ABI students are encouraged to think beyond particular groups of animals in which they are interested and to consider science as a process and a way of advancing society. Emphasis is on biological principles that can be used in research or in solving societal problems associated with animals in agriculture, urban areas, or natural environments as opposed to animal care and husbandry. The major requirements provide students the opportunity to develop research and scientific writing skills; demonstrate critical thinking; work closely with faculty, staff, researchers, grad students, and/or professors; and be creative in a scientific environment.
The Program
The major consists of core biological science courses that build on animal biology from molecular foundations to the ecological and evolutionary levels of organization. After completing the core courses (usually at the beginning of the junior year), ABI students have the option of specializing in various interdisciplinary aspects of animal biology and plan their chosen emphasis of study in consultation with their adviser.
The program combines a research project (practicum) under the guidance of a faculty mentor together with supportive coursework. This gives the students a great deal of freedom in choosing classes and a research topic.
The ABI research experience remains unique among undergraduate science majors at UC Davis. By graduation, in addition to completing coursework on the principles of biology, every ABI student has designed and conducted a research project and written a final report of his/her findings.
Advising
On the advising side, we pride ourselves on our ability to provide one-on-one support for each and every one of our students in the major. Because the practicum requires the student to choose courses related to his/her research topic, no two ABI students take all of the same courses. This gives us the privilege of meeting with and getting to know all of our students.
We are always available to answer questions or schedule appointments through email so if you have questions about the program or classes please feel free to contact us.
Elvira Hack, eghack@ucdavis.edu, (530) 754-7277.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Mary Louise “Mary Lou” Flint, a longtime leader of the University of California Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) Program and an Extension entomologist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is the recipient of the 2014 James H. Meyer Distinguished Achievement Award for her outstanding contributions to the university.
Flint, UC IPM's associate director for Urban and Community IPM, and a June 2014 retiree, is the third entomologist (Frank Zalom, 2004, and Thomas Leigh, 1988) to receive the Academic Federation award, first presented in 1971.
A dinner honoring her will take place at 6 p.m., Monday, Dec. 1 in Ballrooms B and C of the UC Davis Conference Center.
“This is a special award for me because of my father-in-law (former UC Davis Chancellor James Meyer for whom the award is named) and his strong support for the Academic Federation and the Cooperative Extension Specialists, Agricultural Experiment Station researchers and other non-Senate academics it represents,” Flint said.
Meyer (1922-2002) served as chancellor from 1969 to 1987, during the university's greatest period of growth and change.
Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, nominated Flint for the award. “Her name is synonymous with IPM, pest control alternatives, and public service, not just in California and the United States, but worldwide,” he wrote in his letter of nomination.
Wrote UC IPM Director Kassim Al-Khatib: “Dr. Flint has initiated, conducted, and established an outstanding and well respected IPM research and outreach program for urban and community. Many of her programs and findings have significant impact on pest management in California. She is a talented, capable specialist and good communicator to the IPM end-user.” Globally, the UC IPM program is considered the gold standard of IPM.
Flint received her bachelor's degree in plant sciences in 1972 from UC Davis, and her doctorate in entomology from UC Berkeley in 1979. “We are fortunate that she chose to spend her career here at UC Davis,” Parrella said.
Among her accomplishments:
- Created, wrote or edited and oversaw the development of the UC IPM's IPM Manual series of books from 1980-2007; this series includes IPM manuals on 15 different agricultural crops or crop groups. More than 100,000 copies of these books have been sold worldwide.
- Oversaw the development and creation of the online UC IPM Pest Management Guidelines from 1987-2007. This series included 43-crop specific PMGs featuring hundreds of pests and thousands of photographs and authored by UC experts around the state and updated regularly. Flint served as technical editor. She developed many online tools associated with the PMGs such as the Natural Enemies Gallery and the Weed Galleries.
- Established the UC IPM Pest Note series for home, garden, landscape and urban audiences. This series covers more than 165 pests. About 12,000 people a day access these publications on the UC IPM Home and Garden website.
- Authored several important books on IPM including Pests of the Garden and Small Farm, IPM in Practice: Principles and Methods of IPM and The Natural Enemies Handbook. She developed the Pesticide Compendium series along with Patrick O'Connor Marer.
- Created some of the earliest interactive learning tools of IPM, including the 1996 CD-ROM Solving Garden Problems: A University of California Interactive Guide and The UC Interactive Tutorial for Biological Control of Insects and Mites (an interactive CD-ROM, Publication 3412). She and her colleagues also created some of the first online training materials for IPM with online training programs for retail nursery and garden center personnel. The UC Guide to Healthy Lawns on the UC IPM website is another key accomplishment. UC IPM takes its 16 portable UC IPM Touch Screen IPM kiosks to hundreds of retail stores and community events. More recently, Flint has been heavily involved in creating YouTube videos on the UC IPM channel and disseminating information through other electronic and social media.
- Developed hands-on, train-the-trainer programs for UC Master Gardeners, retail nursery personnel and landscape professionals that have resulted in the delivery of information to far more people than would be possible through conventional training meetings. Among the topics: biological control, pesticides and landscape pest identification.
Butte County Cooperative Extension Director and Farm Advisor Joseph Connell lauded Flint's outstanding work in “developing a wide range of Pest Notes covering topics of concern to both commercial growers and homeowners. These notes are widely distributed through Cooperative Extension offices statewide and are regularly used by Master Gardeners throughout California in their numerous outreach efforts to provide the public with peer reviewed pest management answers to common problems.”
Bay Area IPM Advisor Andrew Sutherland, Alameda County, noted that “Mary Louise Flint clearly understands the importance of reaching urban clientele through electronic media and hands-on educational programs. Urban pesticide applications have the potential to disproportionately affect surface water quality due to the prevalence of impervious surfaces and frequent runoff in urban areas.
“Mary Louise has aimed to reduce these negative impacts by extending pesticide and IPM information and resources to the main urban users of pesticides; the general public. She has utilized important urban extenders, such as UCCE Master Gardeners and retail garden center and hardware store staff, as well as mass media to disseminate the IPM message and directives. These applied and innovative programs have doubtless outcomes, such as reductions in urban pesticide use, and probable impacts, such as improved biodiversity and survival of aquatic invertebrates, key members of the food web.”
Said research entomologist Steven J. Seybold of the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Davis, and an affiliate of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology: “Dr. Flint is a California and national leader in outreach/technology transfer in the area of urban and community integrated pest management. For almost three decades she held the leadership position of director of the UC Statewide IPM Program's Education and Publications unit and singlehandedly guided and nurtured the development of the print and electronic media program that is the basis for the outreach success of UC Statewide IPM today….she cares fiercely about the creativity, technical merit, quality, and appearance of the materials provided by the IPM program and this attention to detail and her high standards have paid dividends to my own research program.”
“On a national level, Mary Louise was instrumental in facilitating the rapid processing and release of the national trapping guidelines for the walnut twig beetle, a bark beetle that vectors the pathogenic agent for thousand cankers disease of walnut,” said Seybold, a noted chemical ecologist. “Once our team had discovered the aggregation pheromone of this beetle and had demonstrated its value in trapping the insect in California, Mary Louise assisted us with the preparation and dissemination of useful trapping guidelines, which have been employed by state pest regulatory officials and detection entomologists throughout the country.”
Widely honored by her peers, Flint received the 2002 Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award for Integrated Pest Management from the Association of Applied IPM Ecologists; a 2003 IPM Innovator Award from the California Department of Pesticide Regulation as part of the Sacramento Water Wise Pest Control Program; a 2003 resolution from the Sacramento City Council honoring her for contributions to the Sacramento Water Wise Program; a 2004 Environmental Services Award from the San Francisco Department of the Environment; and an international IPM Award of Recognition, “Grower Incentives Team Project,” at the 2009 International IPM Symposium in Portland, Ore.
Active in the Academic Federation, Flint chaired the merits and promotions committee (Joint Academic Federation/Academic Senate) for three years.
Flint is not only the third entomologist to receive the award, but the third IPM specialist. Frank Zalom, a professor in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, directed the UC IPM Program for 16 years (1988-2001). He is currently serving as president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America. Thomas Leigh (1923-1993) stood at the forefront of integrated pest management of cotton pests, according to an article in the summer 1994 edition of American Entomologist. He taught courses on cotton IPM and host plant resistance.
Related links:
Past recipients of the James H. Meyer Award