Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is the recipient of the 2013-14 Distinguished Service Award for Outstanding Extension from the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR).

Barbara Allen-Diaz, vice president of UC ANR, announced the recipients of the Distinguished Service Awards  today (May 20). 

Mussen, who will retire in June, was honored for 38 years of outstanding service. He devotes his research and extension activities toward the improvement of honey bee health and honey bee colony management practices.

Mussen, who joined the UC Davis department in 1976, is known throughout the state, nation and world as “the honey bee guru” and “the pulse of the bee industry" and as "the go-to person" when consumers, scientists, researchers, students, and the news media have questions about honey bees.

Since 1976, he has written and published the bimonthly newsletter, from the UC Apiaries, and Bee Briefs, providing beekeepers with practical information on all aspects of beekeeping. 

His nominators wrote that what sets Dr. Mussen apart from his Extension-specialist peers are these seven attributes:

1. His amazing knowledge of bees
2. His excellent communication skills in a diverse clientele, including researchers, Extension personnel, legislators,
   commodity boards, grower organizations, pesticide regulators, students, news media, and beekeeping associations at the national, state and local levels,
3. His eagerness to help everyone, no matter the age or stature or expertise, from an inquiring 4-H'er to a beginning beekeeper to a commercial beekeeper
4. His ability to translate complicated research in lay terms; he's described as “absolutely the best”
5. His willingness—his “just-say-yes” personality---to go above and beyond his job description by presenting multiple talks to every beekeeping association in California, whether it be a weekday, evening or weekend, and his willingness to speak at a wide variety of events, including pollinator workshops, animal biology classes, UC activities and fairs and festivals
6. His reputation for being a well-respected, well-liked, honest, and unflappable person with a delightful sense of humor; and
7. His valuable research, which includes papers on antiobiotics to control American foulbrood; fungicide toxicity in the almond orchards; the effect of light brown apple moth mating pheromone on honey bees; the effects of high fructose corn syrup and probiotics on bee colonies; and the invasion and behavior of Africanized bees. He is often consulted on colony collapse disorder and bee nutrition.

"Without question, Eric is the No. 1 Extension person dealing with honey bees in the nation, if not the world," said MacArthur Genus Awardee Professor Marla Spivak, Distinguished McKnight University Professor Apiculture/Social Insects at the University of Minnesota. "Research colleagues, beekeepers and the public are all very lucky to have him.”

Said Extension Specialist John Skinner of the University of Tennessee: “Eric is one of the most well-respected and influential professional apiculturists in the nation. If I could select one person to represent the apicultural scientific community including research, regulation and extension, I would choose Eric.”

“Those of us in the bee industry who have been privileged to know and work with Eric appreciate his vast knowledge of honey bees and great communication skills," Gene Brandi, legislative chairman of the California State Beekeepers' Association. "Whether addressing scientists, beekeepers, growers, government officials, the media or anyone else, Eric can be relied upon to convey scientifically accurate information about honey bees and the beekeeping industry.”

Said native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis: "He has played an invaluable role as a linchpin between honey bee researchers and the beekeeping industry and the commodity groups which depend on honey bees for pollination of their crops. His knowledge of honey bees and their biology, management and colony health is highly valued by his colleagues and clients. Eric is not only our state expert on all topics relating to honey bees, but is sought after by national level organizations to participate on committees dealing with the most important concerns of the beekeeping industry." 

Highly honored by his peers at the regional, state and national levels, Mussen received the prestigious American Association of Professional Apiculturists Award for Apicultural Excellence, and scores of other awards. He's served as the president of numerous organizations and keynoted their conferences.  

A native of Schenectady, N.Y., Mussen received his bachelor's degree in entomology from the University of Massachusetts (after turning down an offer to play football at Harvard) and then received his master's degree and doctorate in entomology from the University of Minnesota in 1969 and 1975, respectively.

His doctoral research focused on the epidemiology of a viral disease of larval honey bees, sacbrood virus.  "During those studies I also was involved in studies concerning sunflower pollination and control of a microsporidian parasite of honey bees, Nosema apis," Mussen recalled.  "Now a new species of Nosema has displaced N. apis and is even more difficult to keep subdued."

"I am basically all pro-bee,” Mussen told the American Bee Journal in a two-part feature story published in the September of 2011. “Whatever I can do for bees, I do it...It doesn't matter whether there is one hive in the backyard or 15,000 colonies. Bees are bees and the bees' needs are the bees' needs.”

Mussen credits his grandfather with sparking his interest in insects. His grandfather, a self-taught naturalist, would take his young grandson to the woods to point out flora and fauna.

The UC ANR Distinguished Service Awards are given biennially for outstanding contributions to the teaching, research and public service mission of the Division, Allen-Diaz said.

The 2013-2014 award recipients:

• Outstanding Extension – Eric Mussen, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at UC Davis for bees.
• Outstanding Research – Mark Battany, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara countiesfor viticulture.
• Outstanding New Academic – David Doll, UC Cooperative Extension advisor in Merced County for nut crops.
• Outstanding Team – Ken Tate, UC Cooperative Extension specialist in the Department of Plant Sciences at UC Davis, and Rob Atwill, director of Veterinary Medicine Extension at UC Davis, are the recipients of the Outstanding Team Award. Since 1994, Tate and Atwill have collaborated on a series of projects assessing the potential risk to rangeland surface-water quality and human health from livestock associated pollutants. 
• Outstanding Leader – Pamela Geisel, former director of the statewide UC Master Gardener Program. Although Pam retired recently, since this nomination package was very strong, I believe it's appropriate and important to give Pam this much-deserved award. 
• Outstanding Staff – Michael Yang, UCCE agricultural assistant in Fresno County for small farms.

Each of the individual award recipients will receive $2,000 and a certificate. The team award recipients will receive  individual certificates and share $5,000.

The Academic Assembly Council Program Committee, chaired by Joe Grant, reviewed the DSA nominations and presented their recommendations to Allen-Diaz. Committee members were Rachel Surls, Becky Westerdahl, Scott Oneto and Jennifer Heguy. 

(News embargo lifts at noon Monday, May 19, 2014, Pacific Time)

UC Davis Researchers Lead International Team in Making the Most Precise Estimates of Dengue Transmission Rates Ever, Casting New Light on Why Interventions to Prevent Dengue Fever Are Unsuccessful

Listen to Video, Robert Reiner (YouTube, Created by Professor James Carey)

DAVIS--Newly published research involving a 12-year study of dengue infections in Iquitos, Peru—an international team project led by researchers at the University of California, Davis—helps explain why interventions are frequently unsuccessful in efforts to prevent the mosquito-borne disease.

The research, headed by Professor Thomas Scott of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is published May 19 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"Defining variation in the risk of dengue transmission has been a roadblock to understanding disease dynamics and designing more realistic and effective disease prevention programs,” said Scott, noted dengue researcher and a senior author of the paper, “Time-Varying, Serotype-Specific Force of Infection of Dengue Virus.”

“This study is an important step toward overcoming that obstacle,” Scott said. “We hope our results will help reduce the burden of this increasingly devastating disease."

Dengue, a mosquito-borne virus infecting nearly 400 million people a year, “is difficult to model not only because the majority of all infections are hidden, but also because there are four distinct serotypes, or versions, of dengue that each have unique characteristics,” said lead author Robert Reiner, a Research and Policy for Infectious Disease Dynamics (RAPIDD) postdoctoral fellow in Scott's Mosquito Research Laboratory. RAPIDD, affiliated with the Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md., is designed to improve standards in infectious disease modeling to better inform policy decisions.

“Typically, most infections go unnoticed and as such, measuring and modeling transmission intensity is problematic,” Reiner said.

Dengue virus is transmitted by Aedes aegypti, a mosquito that bites during the daytime as people move about in their daily routines.

Over the 12-year period, from 1999 to 2010, the researchers periodically tested individuals for dengue virus infections, even if they never felt sick. “We created a new modeling approach that was able to leverage the resulting 38,416 blood samples to create time-varying, serotype-specific estimates of transmission intensity, which we measured as the force of infection, or the rate at which susceptible individuals became infected,” Reiner said. “By accurately estimating the force of infection within and between years, we were able to demonstrate that current control strategies that are typically based on one-time estimates of transmission intensity are underestimating the effort needed to eliminate this disease. This may help explain why most interventions are not successful.”

“Our work suggests that certain serotypes can infect up to 33 percent of the susceptible population in a single year and that 79 percent of the population of Iquitos would need to be protected from any further infection to eliminate transmission. Further, our estimates form a detailed description of virus transmission dynamics that provides a basis for understanding the long-term persistence of dengue and for improving disease prevention programs.”

Reiner, who holds a doctorate in statistics from the University of Michigan, joined the Scott lab in September 2011. He has just accepted a position as assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Indiana University, Bloomington.

Among the 21 co-authors are two Scott lab scientists: second author Steve Stoddard and Amy Morrison, based in Iquitos. Others represent the U.S. Naval Medical Research in Lima and Iquitos, Peru; University of Vermont, Burlington; North Carolina State University, Raleigh; Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Mich.; Tulane University, New Orleans; and San Diego State University; Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, Liverpool; Emory University, Atlanta; and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga.

“The marked variation in transmission intensity that we detected indicates that intervention targets based on one-time estimates of the force of infection (FoI) could underestimate the level of effort needed to prevent disease,” the authors wrote in their abstract. “Our description of dengue virus transmission dynamics is unprecedented in detail, providing a basis for understanding the persistence of this rapidly emerging pathogen and improving disease prevention programs.”

Scott's world-class dengue research program recently received two new research grants totaling nearly $10 million to study the mosquito-borne, viral illness that infects 400 million people worldwide each year. The grants, $7.5 million from the National Institutes of Health and $2.2 million Notre Dame University will help fund the program for the next five years, said Scott, director of the Mosquito Research Program and the principal investigator of the dengue research program.

“There is no vaccine nor drug that is effective against this virus,” said Scott, who has studied dengue more than 25 years and is recognized as the leading expert in the ecology and epidemiology of the disease.

While vaccines are under development, it is not clear how they can be best applied when they are available, including in combination with other interventions like mosquito control, Scott said. “New disease prevention tools, in addition to vaccines, and an improved understanding of virus transmission dynamics, which will enhance surveillance and epidemic response, are needed to reduce the global burden of dengue.”

The work was supported by the RAPPID program of the Science and Technology Directory, Department of Homeland Security, and Fogarty International Center, National Institutes of Health; Innovative Vector Control Consortium; U.S. Department of Defense Global Emerging Infections Systems Research Program Work Unit; Military Infectious Disease Research Program Work Units; Deployed Warfighter Protection Program, Department of Defense; and a Wellcome Trust.

(Editor's Note: Watch May Berenbaum's UC Davis talk on "Bees in Crisis." http://mediasite.ucdavis.edu/Mediasite6/Play/8893dbd0b9144f25880df75c6472030a1d)

DAVIS--Internationally recognized entomologist May Berenbaum, professor and head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present two lectures, one on May 20 and one on May 21 at UC Davis  s part of the Storer Lectureship in Life Sciences.

The first is a public lecture on Tuesday, May 20 on "Bees in Crisis: Colony Collapse, Honey Laundering and Other Problems Bee-Setting American Apiculture" at 4:10 p.m. in Ballrooms A and B of the UC Davis Conference Center, 550 Alumni Lane.

The second is a scientific lecture on Wednesday, May 21 on "Sex and the Single Parsnip: Coping with Florivores and Pollinators in Two Hemispheres." This will take place at 4:10 p.m. in Ballrooms A and B of the UC Davis Conference Center.

The two UC Davis lectures are sponsored by the Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the Storer Endowment in Life Sciences, College of Biological Sciences.

She focuses her research on the chemical interactions between herbivorous insects and their host plants, and the implications of these interactions on the organization of natural communities and the evolution of species. In addition to her pioneering research, she is devoted to teaching and to fostering scientific literacy to the general public, authoring numerous magazine articles, as well as three books on insect fact and folklore.

As a spokesperson for the scientific community on the honey bee colony collapse disorder, she has conducted research, written op-ed essays and testified before Congress on the issue.

Berenbaum will become president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA) in 2016,  Berenbaum will be the ESA's fifth female president, and she is the first to have a fictional TV character named after her: Bambi Berenbaum from The X-Files. (Current president of ESA is integrated pest management specialist Frank Zalom, professor of entomology at UC Davis.)

Among her many honors, Berenbaum is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the Ecological Society of America, Entomological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

In recognition of her research and her efforts in promoting public understanding of science, she has received many awards, including the 2010 AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science. In 2011 Berenbaum was awarded the prestigious Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, an international award that recognizes "those individuals who have contributed in an outstanding manner to scientific knowledge and public leadership to preserve and enhance the environment of the world."  She received the 1996 Distinguished Teaching Award from the North Central Branch of ESA.

Born in Trenton, N.J., Berenbaum received her bachelor's degree in biology from Yale University in 1975 and her doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from Cornell University in 1980. She joined the faculty of  the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign in August 1980 and has served as president since 1992 and as Swanlund Professor of Entomology since 1996.

Her work has been reported in over 220 refereed scientific papers and 35 book chapters.  Recent service to her profession includes membership on the editorial boards of four journals and terms on the National Academy of Sciences Council and Governing Board, the National Research Council Board on Agriculture and Natural Resources, the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Science and Creationism, and the Advisory Board of the Koshland Museum of the National Academy of Sciences.

Berenbaum has chaired two National Research Council study committees, including most recently the Committee on the Status of Pollinators in North America.  Devoted to teaching and fostering scientific literacy, she has written many magazine articles, as well as six books about insects for the general public. She is also in demand as a speaker, addressing more than 100 schools, service organizations, museums, science and nature centers, and special interest organizations. She is also a favorite of the news media for insect-related news stories.

Berenbaum founded the University of Illinois Insect Fear Film Festival, a celebration of Hollywood's "misperceptions" of insect biology, an outreach activity now entering its 32nd year.

Her books include

• Bugs in The System: Insects And Their Impact On Human Affairs
• Honey, I'm Homemade: Sweet Treats from the Beehive across the Centuries and around the World
• Daedalus 141:3 (Summer 2012) - Science in the 21st Century
• Buzzwords: A Scientist Muses on Sex, Bugs, and Rock 'n' Roll
• Ninety-Nine Gnats, Nits, and Nibblers
• Ninety-Nine More Maggots, Mites, and Munchers  

The Tracy and Ruth Storer Lectureship in the Life Sciences is the most prestigious of the endowed seminars at UC Davis. Established in 1960, the lectureship is funded through a gift from Professor Tracy I. Storer and Dr. Ruth Risdon Storer. Their donation has made it possible to invite distinguished biological scientists to the UC Davis campus for seminars and to meet with faculty members and graduate students in their field of interest. Past Storer lecturers have included Nobel laureates, members of the National Academy of Science and acclaimed authors in the fields of life sciences and medicine. Tracy Storer was the founding chair of the UC Davis Department of Zoology. Ruth Risdon Storer was Yolo County's first female pediatrician.

Campus host is Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. He can be reached at mpparrella@ucdavis or (530) 752-0492.

Related Links:

Videos from Previous Storer Lecturers

DAVIS--Leithen M'Gonigle,  NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada) postdoctoral fellow at UC Berkeley, will speak on “Habitat Restoration Promotes Pollinator Persistence in Intensively Managed Agriculture” at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar from 12:10 to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, May 14 in 122 Briggs.

Graduate student Katharina Ullmann of the Neal Williams lab is the host.

“Many recent studies have shown that enhancing floral resources in intensive agricultural landscapes promotes species richness of flower-visitor communities, but to date, it is not known whether such effects are transient, merely concentrating individuals from across the larger landscape at flower-rich patches,” M'Gonigle says in his abstract. “Long-term data series and use of occupancy models are particularly helpful in determining whether these richness patterns actually reflect true increases in occupancy, or not.  Further, such models can also determine whether enhanced occupancy results from decreased extinction rates, increased colonization rates, or both, providing information that is useful for conservation planning. “ 

“To date, these models have not been applied to the study of pollinators and their response to restoration.  Here we present the results from a long-term study chronicling how restoration and subsequent maturation of native plant hedgerows affects occupancy, persistence and colonization of bees and syrphid flies in the Central Valley of California.  Using a hierarchical occupancy model, we show that restoration via the introduction of perennial flowering native shrubs promotes the between-season persistence, but not colonization, of both bees and syrphid flies.  This increased occupancy has the long-term effect of leading to the assembly of more diverse communities.  We also find that, for native bees, hedgerow restoration has a greater impact on floral resource specialists than generalists."

M'Gonigle received his bachelor of science degree in mathematics (honors with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2005; his master's degree in zoology from the University of British Columbia in 2006, and his doctorate in zoology from the University of British Columbia in 2011. 

The recipient of numerous awards, he won the Dan David Prize ($15,000 prize for doctoral work) in 2011 and was named the top teaching assistant in his department (based on student course evaluations encompassing 70 teaching assistants) in both 2008 and 2011. Considered an outstanding speaker, he won “best talk” awards from several scientific organizations. 

His most recent publications include:

Frishkoff, L.O., Karp, D.S., M'Gonigle, L.K., Mendenhall, C.D., Zook, J., Kremen, C., Hadley, E.A., and Daily, G.C. Land Use Transforms the Tree of Life. In prep.

M'Gonigle, L.K., Ponisio, L.C., and Kremen, C. Habitat restoration promotes pollinator persistence in intensively managed agriculture. In prep.

Ball-Damerow, J.E., M'Gonigle, L.K., Resh, V.H. Landscape, climate, and habitat factors influencing assemblages of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) in California and Nevada. Submitted.

Ball-Damerow, J.E., M'Gonigle, L.K., Resh, V.H. Changes in occurrence, richness, and biological traits of dragonflies and damselflies (Odonata) in California and Nevada over the past century. Submitted.

M'Gonigle's seminar is scheduled to be video-recorded for later posting on UCTV.

(Editor's Note: See remainder of Spring Quarter Seminars, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology)