DAVIS--Micky Eubanks, professor of entomology at Texas A&M University, will speak on “Community Ecology of a ‘Pest’: Aphids Rule Their World Via Powerful Indirect Effects” at the UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar on Wednesday, Oct. 24 in Room 1022 of the Life Sciences Building.
His seminar, set from 12:10 to 1 p.m., is the second in a series of noonhour seminars. He will be introduced by his host, graduate student Billy Krimmel.
Eubanks received his bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in biology from the University of Mississippi and his doctorate in entomology from the University of Maryland.
Prior to moving to Texas A&M University, Eubanks was a postdoctoral fellow at Bucknell University and an assistant and associate professor at Auburn University. Eubanks is broadly interested in the community and evolutionary ecology associated with plant-insect interactions. Much of his research focuses on understanding variation in the strength of species interactions.
The Eubanks lab, he says, seeks to understand “keystone” interactions that explain a disproportionately large amount of variation in the abundance and distribution of species. “Understanding these interactions is critical if we are to accurately predict the outcome of species interactions in diverse and highly connected ecosystems and maintain ecological sustainability in a world where human impacts increase daily.”
The UC Davis Department of Entomology fall seminars are coordinated by assistant professors Joanna Chiu and Brian Johnson. Through the coordination of professor James R. Carey, this seminar will be videotaped and posted on UCTV.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Oct. 1, 2012
This is the first in the fall seminar series sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology. Brian Johnson, assistant professor of entomology, will serve as the host for the Oct. 17 seminar. He and assistant professor Joanna Chiu are coordinating the seminars.
"Individuals in insect societies are inextricably linked by social interactions,” Linksvayer writes in his abstract. “Colony-level social networks coordinate individual function and colony homeostasis just as physiological networks coordinate tissue function and homeostasis within individuals. As a result, social insect colonies are often described as ‘superorganisms’ composed of organisms that function together more-or-less as a unit. This characteristic is thought to have led to the remarkable ecological and evolutionary success of the social insects. Despite these conspicuous superorganismal properties and the inherent hierarchical organization of life in insect societies (i.e. colony-level, organismal-level), most previous studies of the evolutionary genetic and molecular basis of social insect traits use the same reductionist approaches that have been developed for solitary organisms, where an individual’s traits are only influenced by its own genome. More realistically, in social organisms, an individual’s traits are the property of the genomes of all social group members. I will discuss ongoing integrative research studying how social interactions in ants and honey bees affect the expression and evolution of individual- and group-level traits."
Linksvayer, appointed assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania in 2011, received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota, in 1998, and his doctorate in evolution, ecology and behavior from Indiana University in 2005. He did his postdoctoral work in evolutionary biology at Arizona State University from 2005 to 2008, and in social evolution from the University of Copenhagen in 2011.
Through the coordination of professor James R. Carey, this seminar will be videotaped and later posted on UCTV.
Linksvayer's publications include:
Linksvayer TA, J Fewell, J Gadau, M Laubichler. 2012. Developmental evolution in social insects: regulatory networks from genes to societies. Journal of Experimental Zoology B: Molecular and Developmental Evolution 318: 159-169.
Linksvayer TA, O Kaftanoglu, E Akyol, S Blatch, GV Amdam, RE Page Jr. 2011. Larval and nurse worker control of developmental plasticity and the evolution of honey bee queen-worker dimorphism. Journal of Evolutionary Biology 24: 1939-1948.
Linksvayer, TA, MJ Wade. 2009. Genes with social effects are expected to harbor more sequence variation within and between species. Evolution 63: 1685-1696.
Linksvayer, TA, MK Fondrk, RE Page Jr. 2009. Colony-level selection in honey bees produces coevolved socially-interacting gene complexes. American Naturalist 173: E99-E107.
Linksvayer, TA. 2006. Direct, maternal, and sibsocial genetic effects on individual and colony traits in an ant. Evolution 60: 2552-2561.
Anderson KE, D Wheeler, K Yang, TA Linksvayer. 2011. Dynamics of an ant-ant obligate mutualism: colony growth, density dependence and frequency dependence. Molecular Ecology 20: 1781-1793.
Johnson, BR, TA Linksvayer. 2010. Deconstructing the superorganism: social physiology, reproductive groundplans, and sociogenomics. The Quarterly Review of Biology 85: 57-79.
Moorad, JA, TA Linksvayer. 2008. Levels of selection on threshold traits. Genetics 179: 899-905.
Linksvayer, TA. 2007. Ant species size differences are determined by epistasis between brood and worker genomes. PLoS ONE 2: e994.
Linksvayer, TA, MJ Wade. 2005. The evolutionary origin and maintenance of eusociality in the aculeate Hymenoptera: maternal effects, sib-social effects, and heterochrony. The Quarterly Review of Biology 80: 317-336.
Upcoming seminar speakers are:
Oct. 24: Micky Eubanks, professor, Texas A&M University
Title: "Community Ecology of a "Pest": Aphids Rule their World via Powerful Indirect Effects"
Host: Graduate student Billy Kimmel
Oct. 30: Sarjeet Gill, professor, UC Riverside
Title: "Bacterial Toxins in Disease Mosquito Vector Control"
Host: Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology
Nov. 7: Taro Ohkawa, postdoctoral researcher, UC Berkeley
Title: "Baculovirus Manipulation of the Host Actin Cytoskeleton: Roles in Entry and Egress"
Host: George Kamita from the Bruce Hammock lab
Nov. 14: No seminar this week (Entomological Society of America)
Nov. 28: James Mallet, professor, Harvard University
Title: "Hybridization, Mimicry and the Origin of Species in Heliconius Butterflies"
Host: Gregory Lanzaro, professor, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Dec. 5: Leigh Alumni Seminar (time and site to be announced).
Marc Tatar, professor, Brown University
Title: "Integrated Control of Drosophila Aging by Insulin/IGF Signaling"
Host: James R. Carey, professor of entomology
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Oct. 4, 2012
Professor James R. Carey is arranging the videotaping. The Department of Entomology seminars on UCTV are at http://seminars.uctv.tv/Host.aspx?hostID=17.
Evolutionary biologist Timothy Linksvayer, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, will be the first speaker in the UC Davis Department of Entomology's fall seminars.
Oct. 17: Tim Linksvayer, assistant professor, University of Pennsylvania.
Title: "Colony-Level Social Insect Gene Regulatory Networks"
Host: Brian Johnson, assistant professor of entomology
Oct. 24: Micky Eubanks, professor, Texas A&M University
Title: "Community Ecology of a "Pest": Aphids Rule their World via Powerful
Indirect Effects"
Host: Graduate student Billy Kimmel
Oct. 31: Sarjeet Gill, professor, UC Riverside
Title: "Bacterial Toxins in Disease Mosquito Vector Control"
Host: Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology
Nov. 7: Taro Ohkawa, postdoctoral researcher, UC Berkeley
Title: Baculovirus Manipulation of the Host Actin Cytoskeleton: Roles in
Entry and Egress
Host: George Kamita from the Bruce Hammock lab
Nov. 14: No seminar this week (Entomological Society of America's annual
meeting)
Nov. 28: James Mallet, professor, Harvard University
Title: "Hybridization, Mimicry and the Origin of Species in Heliconius
Butterflies"
Host: Gregory Lanzaro, professor, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Organizers are urging attendees to wear their Halloween costumes and participate in the open house, set from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Bohart Museum at 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane, formerly California Drive. The event is free and open to the public.
The theme, “Insects and Death,” focuses on forensic entomology. UC Davis forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey of the Department of Entomology will be on hand to answer questions about insects as decomposers, and why they’re important.
Bohart Museum officials also will correct myths about “deadly” insects and “creepy crawlers.”
“House flies and mosquitoes cause more human deaths than all other insects combined,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
For example, a fly that lands on someone’s food regurgitates its stomach contents (such as dog feces) which can result in disease transmission, Kimsey said.
Indoor plumbing and window screens are the two biggest protectors from house fly transmission of diseases, she added.
As a family fun crafts activity, plans call for attendees to draw and color buttons to wear and take home. The Bohart’s buttonmaker is a popular tool.
Another attraction is the display insect-themed pumpkins, carved by Bohart personnel.
The Bohart Museum houses a global collection of more than seven 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.
The museum also features a year-around live “petting zoo” with such permanent residents as walking sticks, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, and a rose-haired tarantula. Visitors are invited to hold and photograph them.
The gift shop will be open to enable visitors to purchase such gifts as jewelry, T-shirts, sweatshirts, posters, insect-themed candy. Especially popular around Halloween are scorpion lollipops, chocolate-covered insects and flavored mealworms.
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.
More information is available on the Bohart website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or by contacting Tabatha Yang at tabyang@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-0493. Due to limited space, group tours will not be booked during the weekend hours.
The nearest intersection to Crocker Lane is LaRue Road.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
DAVIS—UC Davis medical entomologist William K. Reisen, internationally renowned for his comprehensive research on mosquitoes, especially those that transmit encephalitis and West Nile virus, is the recipient of the 2012 Harry Hoogstraal Medal after four decades of “outstanding achievements in the field of medical entomology.”
Reisen, who directs the Center for Vectorborne Diseases (CVEC), based at UC Davis, will receive the award Nov. 11 in Atlanta, Ga. at the 61st annual meeting of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene (ASTMH). He is an Academic Federation research entomologist in CVEC; an adjunct professor in the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine’s Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology (PMI); and a graduate student advisor with the UC Davis Entomology, Microbiology, Epidemiology and Comparative Pathology Graduate Groups.
Reisen is the fourth medical entomologist from UC Davis to receive the award since it was first presented in 1987. Other UC Davis recipients:
2007: Bruce Eldridge, former director of the statewide UC Mosquito Research Program and emeritus professor of entomology at UC Davis
2005: Robert Washino, emeritus professor and former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology
2004: John Edman, former director of CVEC and emeritus professor of entomology
Several other UC medical entomologists have received the coveted honor: A. Ralph Barr of UCLA in 1995; Thomas H. G. Aitken, UCLA, in 1993; and William C. Reeves of UC Berkeley in 1987.
The coveted ASTMH award memorializes parasitologist-entomologist Harry Hoogstraal (1917-1986), a global authority on ticks and tick-borne diseases, whom Reisen met in Cairo in the early 1980s.
Reisen was nominated by fellow CVEC researchers Aaron Brault, Chris Barker, both PMI faculty, and Eldridge. Describing him as “genuine” and “a rarity,” they praised his expertise, accomplishments, dedication and enthusiasm.
Reisen's University of California career began in 1980 as a research entomologist and director of the Arbovirus Field Station, School of Public Health, UC Berkeley. Although the UC Berkeley program transitioned to Davis in 1995, he moved to the UC Davis campus in 2005 to provide administrative oversight for the arbovirus program and later CVEC.
Reisen’s current research targets the population ecology of Culex tarsalis and other mosquitoes and their vertebrate hosts in relation to the epidemiology, surveillance and control of arboviruses in California.
The award nominators noted that “Bill Reisen’s career epitomizes the description of this award, spanning over forty years during which he has published over 260 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters in the field of medical entomology, served on countless research grant review committees focusing on medically important arthropod vectors and/or disease agents, and served extensively on medical entomology editorial boards. He has also received many competitive research awards himself from national and international research funding agencies. He has also guided the careers of a number of MS and PhD students and post-doctoral fellows. We cannot think of any individual who would qualify more as having made an outstanding contribution to the field of medical entomology.”
Born in Jersey City, N.J., Reisen received his bachelor’s degree in agriculture, with a major in entomology and plant pathology, at the University of Delaware, Newark; his master’s degree in zoology, with a supporting field in experimental statistics from Clemson University, South Carolina; and his doctorate in zoology, with supporting fields of medical microbiology and ecology, from the University of Oklahoma, Norman.
As a captain in the U.S. Air Force, he served as a vector-borne disease surveillance and control officer based in Manila and then Clark Air Base, the Philippines, and conducted disease and vector surveys in Korea, Okinawa, Thailand, and Guam.
Following his military service and graduation from the University of Oklahoma, he worked as a an assistant professor of international medicine at the University of Maryland’s International Center for Medical Research and Training at Lahore, Pakistan where he conducted research on the bloodfeeding behavior of anopheline mosquitoes (which transmit malaria) and took part in experiments using sterilized male mosquitoes released as a control mechanism as well as studies on mosquito population ecology in relation to pathogen transmission.
“This marked Bill’s first venture into the field of arbovirology with the study of the enzootic transmission cycles and vector competence of Pakistani Culex spp. for transmission of West Nile virus,” Brault, Barker and Eldridge wrote. Following the political unrest in Pakistan after the overthrow of the Shah of Iran in 1979 that resulted in the dissolution of the University of Maryland program in Lahore, Reisen accepted a position at UC Berkeley as research entomologist and director of the Arboviral Field Station.
The trio of nominators cited several examples of his continual scientific contributions: “the effects of climate variation on arthropod-borne pathogen transmission, modeling efforts for predicting arbovirus risk, the application of insecticides for reducing the disease burden of West Nile virus in California, the use of liquid suspension array technologies for the identification of mosquito bloodmeals and his keen observation of the role of stagnant swimming pools as breeding sites for Culex spp. vectors in Sacramento County.”
Highly honored for his work, Reisen received the American Mosquito Control Association’s 2006 John N. Belkin Award for Excellence in Vector Ecology, the 2006 Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Vector Ecology (SOVE), and the 2001 Lifetime Award for Achievement in Medical Entomology from the SOVE International Congress. He was selected a fellow of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) in 2003. His awards also include the 2004 UC Davis Academic Federation Award for Excellence in Research.
Reisen is active in the American Mosquito Control Association, Mosquito and Vector Control Association of California, the Society for Zoonotic Ecology and Epidemiology, ESA, SOVE and ASTMH.
His public service also includes editor-in-chief of the ESA’s Journal of Medical Entomology from 1988 to 1995 and subject editor of the journal (continuing); chair of the editorial board of the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association; vice president and president of SOVE from 1988 to 1992; chair of an ESA section; and program reviewer for numerous federal grants. He most recently spoke on climate change for the Institutes of Medicine and as a consultant for the White House on the impacts of climate change on arthropod-borne disease transmission.
(Editor's Note: Research entomologist William Reisen is interviewed for a two-part NBC news piece on West Nile virus earlier this month. Part 1
Part 2 )
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
