DAVIS--“Insect Societies,” featuring honey bees, ants and termites, will set the theme for the Bohart Museum of Entomology’s open house on Sunday, Nov. 18.
The event, free and open to the public, takes place from 1 to 4 p.m. Room 1124 of the Academic Surge building on Crocker Lane, formerly California Drive, on the UC Davis campus.
Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon said the bee displays will include a bee observation hive from the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility; a cartoon of a waggle/round/break dance created by former UC Davis student and cartoonist Beth Urabe; and a framed photo of a bee sting by Kathy Keatley Garvey, UC Davis Department of Entomology, that went viral.
Billy Synk, staff research associate at the Laidlaw facility, will provide the bee observation hive, which he also brought to the debut event of the Honey and Pollination Center on Oct. 27 at the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.
Urabe’s cartoon depicts a waggle and round dance, behaviors performed by honey bees, and then on a humorous note, she added break dancing. She is a former cartoonist for the California Aggie newspaper,
The photo of the bee sting depicts a bee stinging Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen in the apiary at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. It won first place in a photo feature contest sponsored by an international agricultural-related organization and then was named “one of the most amazing photos of 2012” by Huffington Post.
Also planned are displays on ants and termites. Visitors can also “get up close and personal” with the live specimens in the year-around “petting zoo.” They include Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas, including a rose-haired tarantula.
“We have about two dozen in the petting zoo,” Heydon said.
Featured in the gift shop will be California dogface butterfly t-shirts at a discounted prices; and caddisfly cases that can be used to string together necklaces.
The Bohart Museum, directed by Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, houses a global collection of nearly eight million insect specimens and is the seventh largest insect collection in North America. It is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity. Noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007) founded the museum in 1946.
Bohart officials schedule weekend open houses throughout the academic year so that families and others who cannot attend on the weekdays can do so on the weekends. The Bohart’s regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. The insect museum is closed to the public on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
The remainder of the open houses for the 2012-2012 academic year are:
Saturday, Dec. 15, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "Insects in Art"
Sunday, Jan. 13, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "Extreme Insects"
Saturday, Feb. 2, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "Biodiversity Museum Day"
Sunday, March 24, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "Aquatic Insects"
Saturday, April 20: 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Theme: UC Davis Picnic Day
Saturday, May 11, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "Moth-er's Day"
Sunday, June 9, 1 to 4 p.m.
Theme: "How to Find Insects"
More information is available on the Bohart website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or by contacting Steve Heydon at slheydon@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-0493. The nearest intersection to Crocker Lane is LaRue Road.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Speakers for the winter quarter seminar series, UC Davis Department of Entomology, have been announced by assistant professors Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson, coordinators.
All will take place from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Addition. Plans are to record the seminars for later posting on UCTV under the coordination of professor James R. Carey.
Winter Quarter 2013
Wednesday, Jan. 9
Erin Wilson
Postdoctoral Associate, University of Maryland
Title: Effects of Omnivorous Invaders on Arthropod Communities in a Fragmented Landscape
Host: Louie Yang
Wednesday, Jan. 16
Michael Branstetter
Buck Postdoctoral Fellow, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History
Title: "Uncovering the Origins of a Middle American Ant Radiation: insights from Natural History, Biogeography and Molecular Data."
Host: Phil Ward
Wednesday, Jan. 23
Nick Haddad
William Neal Reynolds Professor of Biology, North Carolina State University
Title: Landscape Conservation for Rare Insects
Host: Neal Williams
Wednesday, Jan. 30
Paul de Barro
Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO ecosystem sciences
Title: Unravelling the Complex Bemisia tabaci (Silverleaf Whitefly): From Biotype to Species
Host: Michael Parrella
Wednesday, Feb. 6
Jim Cane
Entomologist, USDA-ARS Bee Biology Lab
Title: The Spectrum of Managed Nesting for Pollination by Non-Social Bees
Host: Leslie Saul-Gershanz
Wednesday, Feb. 13
Steven Reppert
Higgins Family Professor of Neuroscience, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Title: Monarch Butterfly Migration: Behavior to Genes
Hosts: Joanna Chiu and Hugh Dingle
Wednesday, Feb. 20
Nick Mills
Professor, UC Berkeley
Title: Light Brown Apple Moth – Not a Typical Invader
Host: Mary Louise Flint
Wednesday, Feb. 27
Anupama Dahankar
Assistant Professor, UC Riverside
Title: Taste Receptors and Feeding Preferences in Insects
Host: Joanna Chiu
Wednesday, March 6
Sergio Rasmann
Assistant Professor
UC Irvine Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Title: Ecological, Evolutionary and Genetic Drivers of Plant Defenses against Herbivores
Host: Rick Karban
Wednesday, March 13
Anna Whitfield
Associate Professor, Kansas State University
Title: Dissecting the Molecular Interplay Between Plant Viruses and their Arthropod Vectors
Host: Diane Ullman
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Nov. 2, 2012
A trio of entomologists affiliated with the Bohart Museum of Entomology at the University of California, Davis, recently published a humorous take on the evolutionary development and history of the 646 fictional species depicted in the Pokémon media over the last 16 years.
“We made a very real phylogeny of the very fake Pokémon creatures,” commented lead author Matan Shelomi, the UC Davis entomology graduate student who conceived the idea.
The article, “A Phylogeny and Evolutionary History of the Pokémon,” appeared in the Annals of Improbable Research (AIR), a tongue-in-cheek journal meant “to make people laugh and then think,” according to the editors. In keeping with the “laugh-and-then-think” concept, the journal also awards the infamous IG Nobel Prizes.
Shelomi, a graduate of Harvard where the IG Nobel Prizes are awarded, said he based his idea “in part on other AIR papers like the phylogeny of Chia Pets and the taxonomic description of Barney the Dinosaur.”
Devoted Pokémon fans know that Pokémon, which means “Pocket Monsters,” is the 1996 brainchild of video game developer Satoshi Tajiri of Japan, who collected insects in his childhood and initially toyed with the idea of becoming an entomologist. Today the Nintendo-owned Pokémon is the world’s second most successful video game-based media franchise, eclipsed only by Nintendo’s Mario.
Until now, however, no one has traced the evolutionary history of the 646 fictional species, let alone develop a 16-generation phylogenetic or evolutionary tree.
“I had a lull in my dissertation research and decided to spend the weekends and downtime making this phylogeny,” said Shelomi, who is studying for his doctorate in entomology with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis. “It took at least a month to actually collect all the data, which I did manually by scrolling through Pokémon websites.”
His interest in Pokémon? “I’ve played the Pokémon Stadium games and watched some of the TV shows when I was in junior high,” he said, describing the influence as strong. “I was in the right target audience range right when Pokémania was hitting the United States, and everyone I knew could recognize a Pikachu on sight.”
“What I love in Pokémon is similar to what I love in entomology--and I suspect Tajiri would agree with me,” Shelomi said. “It provides me with a wide array of unique and colorful creatures to study, all of which are connected in certain fascinating ways. It's a fun way to tie biology with imagination; I just decided to take it a step further and make a paper out of it.”
After collecting the data, Shelomi sent it to Andrew Richards, a junior specialist at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, for the actual phylogram making. When the AIR editors asked for illustrations, Shelomi sought out artist Ivana Li, a fifth-year entomology student and president of the UC Davis Entomology Club. Li, who works part-time at the Bohart Museum, honed her talents as a student cartoonist for the Schurr High School, Montebello, newspaper.
The trio added a fourth co-author, Yukinari Okido, whom Pokémon fans may recognize as the Japanese name of one of the fictional Pokémon professors from the game/TV show, Professor Oak.
“This was a very clever exercise and drew on the talents of some very gifted students,” Kimsey said. Their phylogenetic tree can be seen in the Bohart Museum, located at 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, UC Davis campus.
Richards described working on the project as “fun, educational and nostalgic.”
“Matan sent me the information to process, I plugged it into a phylogeny program, and let it run, simulating generations for about a day,” Richard said. “I took the results and generated a tree. That took some time to add pictures and some color-coding. I wanted the tree to look nice and be pretty easy to interpret.”
The project also embraces educational elements. “I think it can be a good way to explain phylogeny to people with no background in it, since the characteristics and traits used here are easier to grasp than those used in molecular phylogeny or even those done using physical characters,” Richards said.
Richards, who finds playing Pokémon games “both fun and creative,” said the project included a nostalgic aspect, too. “I remember when they first came out and loving them then. When Matan told me about his idea for doing this I thought it would be fun. I wanted to see how well the data would come out, considering everything is just made up by the game makers without any thought to phylogeny or actual evolutionary relationships.”
“It turned out surprisingly well given the data we put into it,” Richard said. “Things fell into good places and it looks very nice.”
Li, who has played Pokémon “for at least a decade,” considers the game and the monsters “pretty creative, especially ones with an actual biological basis. Of course, breathing fire and shooting lightning is pretty cool, too.”
“I like the overall project,” Li said, “because it takes a rather extreme amount of nerdiness to appreciate. However, you have to admit that it is pretty interesting to be able to apply a phylogeny to a bunch of game characters. I really enjoy the simplicity of Pokémon because a lot of people can understand it and relate to it.”
Her sister, a teacher and an even more avid Pokémon fan, “is actually able relate to a lot of her students due to her knowledge of Pokémon,” Li pointed out. “There are aspects to cartoons and video games that might have other applications later on in your life that you would never expect.”
The UC Davis entomologists prefaced the journal article by relating why they did it. “With the phylogenetic and evolutionary relationships of the kingdoms Animalia, Plantae, and Fungi mostly out of the way, attention is now turning toward the Monstrasinu, commonly known as ‘Pocket Monsters’ or ‘Pokémon’ for short. Starting from the 151 original ‘species’ described by Japanese scientist Satoshi Tajiri in a 1996 monograph, Pokémon science today continues to be a rewarding field for taxonomists. Every three to four years, several new species are discovered and described almost simultaneously. A total of 646 Pokémon have been described, most of them in Japan.”
“This paper,” they wrote, “represents the first attempt to create a quantitative phylogeny of the Pokémon, using the underlying assumption that Pokémon evolved via natural selection independently from the animals and plants more familiar to Western zoologists. The goal was to apply modern evolutionary theory and techniques to a field previously limited to pre- Darwinian methods of inquiry.”
The trio acknowledged that some of the specimens are “threatened by the Pokémon fighting rings that are growing rapidly in popularity, particularly among urban youth.”
They also agreed that disagreements over species concepts exist, and that “several sexually dimorphic taxa have had males and females identified as separate species,” offering the examples of Nidoqueen and Nikoking.
“Further complicating the issue is the fact that Pokémon are quite willing to interbreed successfully,” they wrote, adding that “the lack of post-zygotic reproductive isolation is one thing, but how a 400-kilogram Wailord is able to mate with an 11-kilogram Skitty at all remains a mystery.”
As to methods used, they revealed that undergraduate, high school and primary-school aged interns/ trainers from Japan and New York state captured wild Pokémon. “Trainers may or may not have used their Pokémon for combat during the course of their research,” they quipped.
The result: a phylogenetic or evolutionary tree detailing 16 million generations of simulated Pokémon evolution. They concluded that “Pokémon life began in the water, with Pokémon similar to lampreys and bony fishes being among the earliest to reach their present state.” Terrestrial life, they said, rose independently three times.
“This paper,” they summarized, “thus sheds considerable doubt on whether Pokémon use DNA to transmit genetic information, and further suggests the Monstrasinu are a unique domain of life.”
What about reader reaction? “The paper is slowly making the rounds,” Shelomi said. “We've had quite a few people disagree with the tree, as some of the conclusions violate Pokémon canon, and we do have the usual phylogenetic problems of long-branch attraction, etc. The disconnect between the tree and Pokémon mating groups is a problem, but I argue that the Biological Species Concept should not be assumed for Pokémon and I stand by my tree.”
“So far, one scientist--a linguist in Japan--has asked for a copy of the dataset to use in a class on phylogram building, and he apparently came up with a different tree.”
“It would be nice to see a wide set of articles responding to this one,” Shelomi said. “I think it would be quite easy to fill a journal of Pokémon science, although much harder to justify creating one.”
Editor's Note: The Bohart Museum of Entomology, directed by entomology professor Lynn Kimsey, is located at 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, formerly California Drive), UC Davis campus. It is open to the public from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays. It is closed to the public on Friday and weekends, but has special weekend hours.)
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
(Editor's Note: The UC Davis Linnaean Team Lost to the University of Wisconsin, which went on to compete in the finals. Watch ESA's video on the finals: the University of Georgia vs. the University of Wisconsin: http://youtu.be/VPU6Lz3LX1I) Who won? The University of Georgia.)
Nov. 9, 2012
The team, which won the championship at the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America's competition last March, will compete in the Entomological Society of America’s Linnaean Games next week in the Knoxville Convention Center.
Linnaean Games are college bowl-style games based on entomological facts and insect trivia. Team members respond to the moderator's questions by buzzing in with the answers.
The UC Davis group, advised by Extension entomology specialist Larry Godfrey, is comprised of four entomology graduate students:
- Matan Shelomi, the team captain.
Specialized in physiology, he studies with major professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology - Jenny Carlson.
Specializing in medical entomology, she studies with Anthony “Anton” Cornel - Kelly Hamby.
Specializing in integrated pest management (IPM), she studies with major professor Frank Zalom. - Matt Prebus.
Specializing systematics, he studies with major professor Phil Ward.
Alternate is Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, who studies IPM with Godfrey.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology is also fielding a team for the Student Debates competition. The overall topic is “Students’ Perspectives on Scientific Tools to Solve Global Issues.”
The UC Davis team, captained by Jenny Carlson, includes Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, Matan Shelomi, Kevin Cloonan (from the Walter Leal lab) and Irina Shapiro (Ed Lewis lab). They will be debating the University of Arkansas on the best solution to climate change.
The debates will take place on Tuesday afternoon, Nov. 13.
The UC Davis Department of Entomology is sending a contingent of faculty, researchers and graduate students to the ESA meeting. They will deliver talks and/or present posters. IPM specialist Frank Zalom, professor of entomology, serves as the vice-president elect of the 6000-member organization and is in line to be president. Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the department, represents the Pacific Branch on the governing board. Both are ESA Fellows.
For a full schedule of events and who's participating, access this link.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Nov. 5, 2012
The awards went to Jenny Carlson, avian malaria research, and Sandra "Sandy" Olkowski and Kelly Liebman, dengue research. Hazeltine's three sons, Craig of Scottsdale, Ariz; Jeff of Los Angeles; and Lee of Woodland recently visited the UC Davis campus to congratulate the winners and learn more about their research.
Carlson studies avian malaria with UC Davis associate professor/medical entomologist Anthony “Anton” Cornel, headquartered at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, Parlier. Olkowski studies dengue with major professor/medical entomologist Thomas Scott. Liebman, also a graduate student of Thomas Scott's, now has her doctorate in entomology and is working at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Ga.
Carlson received $2000; Olkowski, $1000' and Liebman, $580.
Carlson's research, titled “Culicine Vectorial Capacity and Its Implications for Transmission of Avian Malaria in Western United States,” involves host-feeding preferences, vector abundance and vectorial competence.
Carlson described malaria as “one of the most devastating diseases to humans” but it “also affects a wide range of other mammals, amphibians, reptiles and birds.”
Carlson, who received a Hazeltine Memorial Research Fellowship in 2010 and 2011, earned her bachelor of science degree in zoology from Colorado State University, Fort Collins, and her master's degree biology from San Francisco State University.
Olkowski's proposal is titled Association Between Preexisting DENV Immunity and Severe Disease Due to DENV-2 Infection in Iquitos, Peru.”
“Dengue fever is the most prevalent mosquito-borne viral disease in the world, with an estimated 50 to 100 million cases each year and 2.6 billion people at risk,“ Olkowski said. Illness is caused by infection with any of the four distinct viral serotypes (DENV-1, 2, 3 and 4).
“Severe severe disease was largely absent until introduction of a novel genotype of DENV-2 in 2010-11,” Olkowski said. Her research involves identifying “cohort participants who were infected with DENV-2 during the outbreak.”
“I will then use statistical models to evaluate the relationship between their serological history—by number of infections and serotype sequence—and clinical outcomes. Of particular interest are severe outcomes in persons with a single type of prior antibody, to determine if there was a spike in severity with second infection, as predicted by dengue epidemiology theory.”
Olkowski, who is seeking her doctorate in entomology with a major interest in medical entomology and public health, received a President's Undergraduate Fellowship in May 2011.
Liebman joined the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta following her exit seminar on “Implications of Heterogeneities in Mosquito and Human Populations on Dengue Virus Transmission in Iquitos, Peru.” She lived in Iquitos for a year while doing her research.
“Over the past three decades, dengue virus (DENV) as emerged as one of the most important arthropod-borne viral infections of humans, causing as many as 50 million infections worldwide each year,” Liebman wrote in her application. “The mosquito vector of DENV, Aedes aegypti, is exceedingly efficient because it feeds frequently and almost exclusively on humans.”
“An improved understanding of the distribution of the bites among people in Iquitos will allow me to estimate differential risk of infection based on exposure to mosquito bites and significantly improve understanding of local DENV transmission dynamics,” she wrote.
Liebman, who received Hazeltine Memorial Fellowship Awards in 2009 and 2011, obtained her her master's degree in public health from Yale University and her bachelor's degree in biology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The Hazeltine Memorial Fellowship Awards memorialize William “Bill” Hazeltine (1926-1994), who managed the Lake County Mosquito Abatement District from 1961-64 and the Butte County Mosquito Abatement District from 1966-1992. He was an ardent supporter of the judicious use of public health pesticides to protect public health. He continued work on related projects until his death in 1994.
Hazeltine studied entomology in the UC Berkeley graduate program from 1950-53, and received his doctorate in entomology from Purdue University in 1962.
He maintained close ties with UC Davis entomologists. UC Davis medical entomologist Bruce Eldridge eulogized him at the 2005 American Mosquito Control Association conference “as a man who made a difference.” His talk, illustrated with photos, was published in the 2006 edition of the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association. (See PDF)
"He was a medical entomologist who had a varied career in the field of mosquito biology and control, but he will forever be remembered as a man who fought in the trenches of the pesticide controversy from 1960 until the end of his life, and who made the safe and efficient use of pesticides in public health a personal crusade," Eldridge said.
Eldridge noted that Hazeltine "was an advocate for the use of mosquito control to protect people from mosquitoes and the disease agents they transmit, and he believed chemical control to be a necessary part of the means to accomplish this. He also considered himself an environmentalist, and billed himself as such on his business cards and on his signature block. He had a vast knowledge of pesticides and pesticide legislation, and a strong belief in the scientific basis for public policy issues related to the safe and effective use of pesticides. Because the federal Endangered Species Act influenced mosquito control, he became an authority on this as well."
Eldridge described him as "an effective manager and leader at Butte County. Those who took the trouble to get to know him developed a strong allegiance to him. Most appreciated his absolute honesty and fairness. Not only was Bill honest to a fault, he expected it of people who work for him as well."
Hazeltine, born Sept. 4, 1926 in San Jose, was the youngest of six children born to Karl Snyder Hazeltine and Rachel Josephine Crawford Hazeltine. Karl, a graduate of the University of California, served on the faculty of San Jose State University, where he taught agricultural and natural science. Rachel, a graduate of San Jose State, was a teacher.
Previous recipients:
2011: Brittany Nelms Mills, Kelly Liebman and Jenny Carlson (see story)
2010: Tara Thiemann and Jenny Carlson (see story)
2009: Kelly Liebman and Wei Xu (See story)
2008: Ashley Horton and Tara Thiemann (See story)
2007: Lisa Reimer and Jacklyn Wong (See story)
2006: Christopher Barker and Tania Morgan (See story)
2005: Nicole Mans
2004: Sharon Minnick
2003: Hannah Burrack
2002: Holly Ganz and Andradi Villalobos
2001: Laura Goddard and Linda Styer
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
