July 27, 2012
Billy Synk, whose father is of German descent, and his mother, Italian, tends the Carniolan and Italian bees at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility at the University of California, Davis.
Synk, a staff research associate since May, loves working with the 125 research hives. “There’s always something new to learn,” he said.
Synk divides his time working for honey bee specialist Brian Johnson and native bee specialist Neal Williams, both associate professors in the Department of Entomology. “I like being super busy,” he said.
“Billy is doing a great job,” Johnson commented. “He’s a fast learner and a hard worker and has already played a big role in some experiments.”
Synk, who received his bachelor of science degree in environmental policy and management in 2008 from Ohio State University (OSU), worked with noted bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey at OSU. Cobey later joined the Laidlaw facility in May of 2007.
“Billy worked with me as a student beekeeper assistant,” said Cobey, now a bee breeder-geneticist at Washington State University. “I always look for students who are intrigued with bee behavior and have a rapport with the bees, rather than being asked the two common questions, ‘Do you get stung?” and ‘Do you make honey?” Billy developed a good rapport with the bees, is always enthusiastic and fun to work with. We stayed in close touch over the years. I feel he will be an asset to the UC Davis bee biology program.”
Synk, who received his bachelor of science degree in environmental policy and management in 2008 from Ohio State University, worked at OSU for four years, first for Cobey, and later as a greenhouse assistant, research farm assistant manager, and as an assistant with a soybean project. He also worked at the Ohio State Equine Center, where he recalls “chasing the horses and giving them shots.”
Now a Californian, Synk left Ohio for California four years ago, first rearing leafcutter bees for a seed company specializing in alfalfa and vegetables.
At the Laidlaw facility, Synk works closely with Kimiora Ward of the Williams lab, assisting her with a variety of field work and lab projects. He samples for bees and pests, mounts slides, enters data, monitors for general bee hive health, applies treatments, designs experiments, works with general facilities, and manages interns, students and visitors. He recently tended the blue orchard bees in the hoop houses. His skills extend to plumbing, electrical and woodworking.
Synk also helps out at the Haagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, the half-acre bee friendly garden planted next to the Laidlaw facility.
Born in Solon, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, Synk grew up playing high school football--his coaches nicknamed him “N’ Synk.” Today his passions include cycling, rock climbing, and of course, bees.
Oct. 4, 2011
DAVIS--Integrated pest management (IPM) specialist Frank Zalom, professor and former vice chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and soon-to-be president of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America, is one of three Americans invited to speak at an international IPM workshop, Oct. 16-19, in Berlin, Germany.
Zalom, invited by the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection of Germany, will speak on “Stimulating Use of Professional IPM Consultants in Agriculture, Benefits for Farmers and Society,” on Monday, Oct. 17.
The event is sponsored by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), which helps governments of the developed countries tackle the economic, social and governance challenges of a globalized economy. The OECD is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
At the OECD workshop, to be held in the Julius Kuhn Institute, Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants, invitees will develop recommendations related to the workshop themes, adoption and implementation of IPM in agriculture, contributing to the sustainable use of pesticides and to pesticide-risk reduction.
Wolfgang Zornback, chair of the OECD Working Group on Pesticides, German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, will welcome the group.
The speakers will include noted IPM specialists from Australia, Denmark, Canada, Germany, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, The Netherlands and the UK. About 100 participants were either nominated by their governments or invited by the OECD. Half of the participants will include government representatives working on pesticide regulation, and half of the participants will include representatives from international/regional organizations: European Commission, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), European and Mediterranean Plant Protection Organization (EPPO), International Organization for Biological Control (IOBC), bio-pesticide industries, environmental and consumer organizations and academia.
Americans joining Zalom in Berlin will be Tom Green of the US/IPM Institute of North America in Madison, Wis., who will discuss “IPM in U.S. Schools: Challenges, Opportunities and Implications for IPM in Agriculture” and James VanKirk of the Southern Region IPM Center, North Carolina State University, who will address “IPM Pest Information Platform for Extension and Education.”
The OECD workshop will conclude with a visit to the German chancellery.
Zalom will begin a four-year commitment to the Entomological Society of America (ESA) this fall when he will be inducted as vice president-elect at the organization’s 59th annual meeting set Nov. 13-16 in Reno. He will subsequently move up to vice president and president and then serve a year fulfilling the duties of past president. The UC Davis entomologist will become president at the end of the 2013 annual meeting and then will serve as president at the 2014 meeting in Portland, Ore.
Zalom has been heavily involved in research and leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) activities at the state, national and international levels. He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1986 -2001) and is currently experiment station co-chair of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU) National IPM Committee.
Zalom focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.
The IPM strategies and tactics Zalom has developed include monitoring procedures, thresholds, pest development and population models, biological controls and use of less toxic pesticides, which have become standard in practice and part of the UC IPM Guidelines for these crops.
In his three decades with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, Zalom has published almost 300 refereed journal articles and book chapters, and 340 technical and extension articles. The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including invasive species management, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, impacts and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods, and determination of insect host feeding and oviposition preferences.
The Zalom lab has responded to six important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila.
Zalom is a fellow of ESA, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the California Academy of Sciences.
Highly honored for his work, Zalom received the Entomological Foundation’s 2010 “Award for Excellence in IPM,” an award sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and given for “the most outstanding contributions to IPM.” In 2008 he was part of a team receiving an International IPM “Excellence Award” at the sixth International IPM Symposium. Also in 2008, Zalom was part of the seven-member UC Almond Pest Management Alliance IPM Team that received the Entomological Foundation’s "Award for Excellence in IPM.” The Pacific Branch of the ESA awarded Zalom its greatest honor, the C. W. Woodworth Award, in 2011.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Oct. 5, 2011
DAVIS--Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at the University of California, Davis, will speak on her research in Indonesia at a UC Davis Department of Entomology seminar from 12:10 to 1 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 12 in 122 Briggs.
Her topic: “The International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program (ICBG) Rain Forest Expedition to Sulawesi Rainforest.”
One of her trips resulted in the discovery of a new wasp species, dubbed "warrior wasp," which has drawn international attention. The shiny black wasp appears to be the "Komodo dragon" of the wasp family. The male measures about two-and-a-half-inches long, Kimsey said.
“Its jaws are so large that they wrap up either side of the head when closed. When the jaws are open they are actually longer than the male’s front legs. I don’t know how it can walk. The females are smaller but still larger than other members of their subfamily, Larrinae.”
Kimsey discovered the warrior wasp on the Mekongga Mountains in southeastern Sulawesi on a recent biodiversity expedition funded by a five-year grant from the International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program.
The insect-eating predator was at first thought to belong to the genus Dalara and family Crabronidae. It may now be a new genus. “I’m going to name the species Garuda, after the national symbol of Indonesia,” Kimsey said. Garuda, a powerful mythical warrior that’s part human and part eagle, boasts a large wingspan, martial prowess and breakneck speed.
“The first time I saw the wasp I knew it was something really unusual,” said Kimsey, a noted wasp expert who oversees the Bohart Museum's global collection of seven million insect specimens, including 500,000 wasps. “I’m very familiar with members of the wasp family Crabronidae that it belongs to but had never seen anything like this species of Dalara. We don’t know anything about the biology of these wasps. They are only known from southwestern Sulawesi.”
The large jaws probably play a role in defense and reproduction, she said. "In another species in the genus the males hang out in the nest entrance. This serves to protect the nest from parasites and nest robbing, and for this he exacts payment from the female by mating with her every time she returns to the nest. So it's a way of guaranteeing paternity. Additionally, the jaws are big enough to wrap around the female's thorax and hold her during mating."
In her entire career as entomologist, she’s discovered close to 300 new species. But on three trips to Sulawesi, she’s brought back to the Bohart Museum “hundreds, maybe thousands of new species.”
“It will take years, maybe generations, to go through them all,” Kimsey said.“I consider Sulawesi one of the world’s top three islands for biodiversity—that along with Australia and Madagascar.”
Sulawesi, a large Indonesian island located between Borneo and New Guinea, is known not only for its endemic biodiversity, but its rainforest and its proximity (three degrees) to the equator. Development threatens plant and animal life.
On the last three-week expedition, the UC Davis team of Lynn Kimsey, husband Robert Kimsey, a forensic entomologist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology, and Alan Hitch, assistant curator of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, hooked up with 12 scientists from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI).
The 67-member expedition also included 12 members of Kendari's Chitaka mountaineering group, which guides mountain climbers to the top of the 9,117-foot volcanic peak; and a 40-member porter team that carried the equipment, set up camp and cooked the food.
The terrain was steep, slippery and overall, physically challenging, Lynn Kimsey said. “This part of Sulawesi gets about 400 inches of rain a year,” she said. “We were told that Sulawesi has a dry and rainy season. But the only difference we could see between the dry and rainy season is that during the dry season, it rains only in the afternoon.”
The director of the Bohart Museum since 1989, Kimsey is an insect taxonomist, specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989.
Over the last four years, the international team of scientists has collected about a million specimens. Among the new species: a bat, two frogs, two lizards, two fish, a land crab and many insects.
Kimsey is a collaborator of a five-year $4 million grant awarded to UC Davis scientists in 2008 to study the biodiversity of fungi, bacteria, plants, insects and vertebrates on Sulawesi, all considered threatened by logging operations and mining developments. Much of the mountain was logged two decades ago and now there are plans for an open pit nickel mine, Kimsey said.
“There’s talk of forming a biosphere reserve to preserve this,” she said. “There are so many rare and endangered species on Sulawesi that the world may never see.”
An international team of collaborators is conducting biodiversity surveys, as well as screening microbes and plants for applications to human health and energy needs, recommending strategies to conserve endangered species, and developing and encouraging local conservation, according to principal investigator Daniel Potter of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. Other collaborators from UC Davis are from the UC Davis Herbarium, Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Plant Pathology and the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection in the Department of Food Science and Technology.
Shortly after receiving the grant, Potter, a plant systematist at the Agricultural Experiment Station and director of the UC Davis Center for Plant Diversity, said: “The alarming rate at which biodiversity is being lost in many tropical regions has resulted in an urgent need for such efforts."
The International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program is a multi-agency program led by the National Institutes of Health with contributions from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, and the National Science Foundation.The director of the Bohart Museum since 1989, Kimsey is an insect taxonomist, specializing in bees and wasps and insect diversity. She received her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1979 and joined the faculty in 1989. Kimsey served as the interim chair of the UC Davis Department from 2008 to 2009.
Coordinating the seminar are assistant professors Louie Yang at lhyang@ucdavis.edu and Joanna Chiu, jcchiu@ucdavis.edu
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Oct. 7, 2011
(Note: Those wishing to attend only the reception, set for 5 to 6:30 p.m. may do so at a reduced cost: $10 general admission and $5 for students)
Download flier
Download agenda
DAVIS--The Honeybee Trio of Vacaville will perform at the “Honey!” event on Friday, Oct. 21 at the UC Davis Conference Center, a public celebration sponsored by the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science.
Among their songs: "Sugartime."“It is fitting that the Honeybee Trio will perform at our upcoming event on honey,” said Clare Hasler-Lewis, executive director of the institute and coordinator of the event. “Enhancing the quality of life is an important part of the vision of the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science. I have no doubt participants will have their quality of life enhanced by the Honeybee Trio!”
The popular group, comprised of three teenage girls, performs classics from the 1930s and beyond in three part-harmony. The group includes Karli Bosler, 16, Sarah McElwain,15, and Natalie Angst, 16, all students at Will C. Wood High School, Vacaville.
The public celebration of honey and bees, set from 9 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. will feature speakers discussing the wonder of bees, how bees cooperate to make honey, historical uses of honey and its nutritional aspects.
Also featured: honey tasting, a honey-focused lunch, displays and music. The conference center is located across from the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts.
The event is co-sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.
The program will begin at 9 a.m. light refreshments, served until 10 a.m. The morning speakers will include three scientists from the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
--Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen of the UC Davis Department of Entomology will discuss “The Wonder of Honey Bees." A member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology since 1976, he was recently featured in a two-part series in the American Bee Journal.
-- Assistant professor/bee biologist Brian Johnson, who specializes in the behavior, genetics and evolution of honey bees, as well as apiculture, will speak on “How Bees Cooperate to Make Honey and What they Do With It When We Don't.” Johnson, a University of California President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Berkeley, joined the faculty of the UC Davis Department of Entomology in July.
--Emeritus professor/bee scientist Norman Gary, an author and professional bee wrangler, will cover “Hobby Beekeeping in Urban Environments.” Gary retired from the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 1994 from UC Davis after a 32-year academic career.
Afternoon speakers, both from UC Davis, are Louis Grivetti, professor emeritus, Department of Nutrition, discussing “Historical Uses of Honey as Food” and Liz Applegate, professor, Department of Nutrition and director of Sports Nutrition Program, “Sweet Success—Honey for Better Health and Performance.”
Honey tasting, coordinated by Mussen, takes place from 3 to 3:45 p.m.
At the reception, set from 5 to 6:30 p.m., guests can enjoy honey and listen to the music of the Honeybee Trio of Vacaville and Jazz Nuances of Davis.
Norm Gary will sign and sell his newly published book, “Honey Bee Hobbyist: The Care and Keeping of Bees.” On display will be bee observation hives by Brian Fishback of Wilton, past president of the Sacramento Area Beekeepers’ Association and member of the California State Beekeepers' Association. He is a volunteer at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility.
In addition, beekeeping equipment will be displayed from the Laidlaw facility, and bee and book products by Rev Honey (Ron Fessenden, M.D.)
Gimbal's Fine Candies of San Francisco will provide samples of Honey Lovers. Part of the proceeds from the sale of their product goes to support beekeeping programs at UC Davis.
Recently reduced prices are: industry members and the public: $50; UC faculty, staff and Friends of the RMI: $35, and UC students, $15. Reservations may be made online at http://robertmondaviinstitute.ucdavis.edu/honey or with Kim Bannister at kbannister@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-5171.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Sept. 28 through Dec. 7, 2011 Download PDF (single page) of speakers
DAVIS---The Department of Entomology’s fall seminars will cover a wide range of insects, including honey bees, butterflies, mosquitoes and wasps.
The seminars will be held from 12:10 to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, beginning Sept. 28 and continuing through Dec. 7 in 122 Briggs Hall.
Coordinating the seminars are assistant professors Louie Yang and Joanna Chiu. All will be webcast, except as indicated.
The next speaker is Ruth Hufbauer, associate professor, Colorado State University, Fort Collins. She will speak on “The Roles of Demography and Genetics in the Founding of New Populations” on Wednesday, Dec. 7 from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. Host is Louie Yang, assistant professor of entomology.
Abstract
The fate of populations establishing in a new environment rests on their demographic and genetic composition. Establishment success increases with the number of founders as well as with their genetic diversity. However, because more individuals typically harbor more genetic variation, demography and genetics are linked. To disentangle them requires factorial experiments manipulating numbers of founders of different genetic backgrounds (inbred to outbred). I will present data from two such factorial experiments. In both systems, demography and genetic background interact to determine the success of founders. Inbreeding led to reduced success, and those effects depended upon the species and the environment. Inbreeding and genetic drift can, however, have positive effects as well, particularly in the case of purging of deleterious mutations. A third data set supports the idea that purging can happen in natural populations, and may influence subsequent population dynamics.--Ruth Hufbauer.Biosketch:
I grew up in California, earned a bachelor of arts degree at UC Berkeley and worked for a year in Steve Welter’s lab. I then did a Ph.D. at Cornell with Sara Via and Dick Root focused on the evolutionary ecology of aphid-parasitoid interactions. I stayed on for a postdoc examining the population genetics of an introduced biological control agent in Rick Harrison’s lab. In 2000 I started my current job at Colorado State University, having convinced my colleagues (who were hiring for a position on invasive plants and biological control) that I could ask interesting questions about plant-insect interactions, not just about insect-parasitoid interactions. I earned tenure, had kids, and then did a year’s sabbatical in Montpellier, France. I can attest that the French excel at bread, wine, cheese as well as evolutionary ecology! With my students, I currently work on a wide variety of topics ranging from applied ecological studies in plant invasions to more fundamental research using model systems.--Ruth Hufbauer.The list of speakers, in chronological order:
Wednesday, Sept. 28: Jacklyn Wong, postdoctoral fellow, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Ga., will speak on “Oviposition Site Selection by Aedes aegypti and its Implications for Dengue Control.” Due to unpublished research, this seminar will not be recorded.
Host: Tom Scott, professor of entomology. Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.Wednesday, Oct. 5: Judith Becerra, associate research professor, University of Arizona, Tucson, will speak on “Coevolution between Bursera and its Herbivores.”
Host: Ian Pearse, graduate student, Rick Karban lab. Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Talk videotaped. See webcastlinks.com pageWednesday, Oct. 12: Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, will speak on “The International Cooperative Biodiversity Group Program (ICBG) Rain Forest Expedition to Sulawesi Rainforest.” Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: None
Talk videotaped. See webcastlinks.com pageWednesday, Oct. 19: Frances Sivakoff, UC Davis doctoral candidate in entomology, Jay Rosenheim lab, will speak on “Pest Management from a Landscape Perspective: Understanding the Factors that Influence the Distribution of Lygus Hesperus.” Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Jay Rosenheim, professor of entomologyWednesday, Oct. 26: Alex Wild, research scholar and insect photographer, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (he received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis with major professor Phil Ward), will speak on “How to Take Better Insect Photographs.” Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Phil Ward, professor of entomology. Watch on UCTVWednesday, Nov. 2: Todd Holmes, professor and vice chair, UC Irvine School of Medicine, will speak on “Drosophila Cryptochrome Mediates a Novel Non-Opsin Phototransduction Mechanism.” Will not be webcast, includes unpublished data. Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor of entomologyWednesday, Nov. 16: Martha Weiss, associate professor, Department of Biology, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C., will speak on "Lepidopteran Learning and Memory: Caterpillars, Butterflies, and the Mysterious In-Between." Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Meredith Cenzer, graduate student, Louie Yang lab
Friday, Nov. 18 (Special seminar from 2 to 3 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall): David Ben-Yakir, researcher, Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Israel, will speak on “Colored Shading Nets Reduce Insect-Borne Viral Diseases in Vegetable Crops.” Site: 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Diane Ullman, professor of entomology and associate dean for undergraduate academic programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.Nov. 23: Thanksgiving Week, no seminars
Wednesday, Nov. 30: Kathryn “Kathy” Hanley, associate professor, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, will speak on “Fevers from the Forest: Dynamics of Sylvatic Dengue Virus and Chikungunya Virus in their Primate Hosts and Mosquito Vectors in Southeastern Senegal.” Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Tom Scott, professor of entomology
Wednesday, Dec. 7: Ruth Hufbauer, associate professor, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, will speak on “The Roles of Demography and Genetics in the Founding of New Populations.” Site: 12:10 to 1 p.m., 122 Briggs Hall.
Host: Louie Yang, assistant professor of entomologyContact information:
Louie Yang: (530) 754-3261 or lhyang@ucdavis.edu
Joanna Chiu: (530) 752-1839 or jcchiu@ucdavis.edu
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894