Jan. 3, 2012
Eric Mussen will be the keynote speaker at the American Honey Producers' Association this week in Phoenix. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)DAVIS--Noted honey bee expert Eric Mussen, Extension apiculturist with the UC Davis Department of Entomology, will discuss three decades of beekeeping when he delivers the keynote address on Thursday, Jan. 5 at the 43rd annual American Honey Producers’ Association Convention in Phoenix.
Mussen will speak on “Never Expect Business as Usual” in the Sheraton Crescent Hotel. He will cover pests, parasites, pesticides, diseases, malnutrition and stress.
Mussen, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 1976, will also touch on the newly announced threat to honey bees, the parasitic phorid fly (Apocephalus borealis). San Francisco State University researchers, in work published Jan. 3 in the Public Library of Science (PLoS One) journal, found that the parasitic fly lays its eggs in the honey bees; it was previously known to parasitize bumble bees, but not honey bees.
The infested bees reportedly fly around like zombies and cannot return to their hives.
“This information explains why some, infested, honey bee adults leave the colony at night and are not likely to come back,” Mussen said. “The percent infestation level is not high enough to cause a Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) loss, by itself. However, anything that further stresses the bee population and increases bee losses can contribute to CCD.”Mussen said the fly “may be contributing to the loss of adult bees from colonies, but that probably is happening, also, in colonies that are not collapsing. CCD seems to be an additive malady, so losses to fly parasitism can join the other stresses. It does not appear to be a dominant factor. ”
The San Francisco researchers detected the fly parasite in some commercial hives in California and South Dakota. Mussen said that without surveys, “we would not know for sure how widespread it is. However, it is likely that a bumble bee parasite would be distributed at least as widespread as its bumble bee hosts.”
Mussen said he does not consider the fly a significant threat. “Honey bees have an amazing ability to ‘make up for’ unanticipated losses--like exposures to bee-toxic agrichemicals in the fields--to the adult population by rearing more brood than would be expected at that time of the year to return to normal populations size. So, if the colony is shrinking, abnormally, the bees often can re-establish the normal size by rearing ‘extra’ brood. However, depending upon the inherent genetic abilities of a specific colony to tolerate fly parasitism, some colonies might be prone to developing parasite levels that are overwhelming, and actually succumb to the infestations.”
Mussen, emphasizing he does not see the phorids as a major threat, said that perhaps “all the other stresses that we have been studying have combined to impair the immune system of the bees. Then, whatever mechanism in the bees' bodies that used to prevent successful parasitism by the fly no longer is working as well. Nearly every facet we have studied--microbes, mite feeding, exposure to pesticides, etc.--all have had a suppressing effect on the honey bee immune system. The current U.S. environment seems to be very stressful to honey bees.”
Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)Among the other speakers at the Jan. 4-8 convention will be bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, who has a dual appointment at UC Davis and Washington State University. She will discuss “The Introduction of Honey Bee Germplasm and Re-Establishment of Apis Mellifera Caucasica” on Saturday, Jan. 7.
Asked about the phorids, Cobey said she learned a year ago of the San Francisco-based study. “I’m still not sure how widespread it is or how much of a problem it may be…another contributing factor in the (bee health) puzzle.”
Colony collapse disorder (CCD), first noticed in the winter of 2006, is a mysterious malady characterized by worker bees abandoning the hive. Mussen believes it is a combination of factors that suppress the immune system: pests, parasites, pesticides, diseases, malnutrition and stress.
“It’s a complex issue,” he said at a fall 2007 seminar at UC Davis when he chronicled bee health. “But one thing is certain: It seems unlikely that we will find a specific, new and different reason for why bees are dying.”
Hive abandonment not a new occurrence, Mussen said the 2007 seminar. “Similar phenomena have been observed since 1869. It persisted in 1963, 1964 and 1965 and was called Spring Dwindling, Fall Collapse and Autumn Collapse. Then in 1975, it was called Disappearing Disease. But the disease wasn’t what was disappearing. The bees were.”Although the cause of CCD is unknown, scientists have noted the high number of viruses and other pathogens, pesticides and parasites present in CCD colonies, as compared to non-CCD colonies. The high levels contribute to weakened immune systems, making the bees more susceptible to pests and pathogens.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Jan. 5, 2012
DAVIS--A federally funded grant that supports the Biomolecular Technology Training Program (BTTP) at the University of California, Davis, has been renewed for another five years.Bruce Hammock is the principal investigator of the Biomolecular Technology Training Program (BTTP) grant. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)The $2.4 million grant, funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, National Institutes of Health, was awarded to principal investigator Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, who obtained the initial grant 10 years ago.
“At a time when training grants are being ended left and right, this is good news,” said Hammock, a distinguished professor of entomology who also directs several other federally funded programs on campus and does research with the UC Davis Cancer Center. “This means that we can continue to nurture exceptional graduate students and provide them with a training experience that will prepare them to be world-class scientists and leaders, who will advance the foundation of U.S. healthcare research.”
Judith KjelstromThe formal training program for the biotechnology training grant is the Designated Emphasis in Biotechnology (DEB) graduate program. DEB is part of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program, a special research program of the Office of Research that's located in the dean's offices of the College of Biological Sciences, Life Sciences Building.
The BTTP provides graduate students with multidisciplinary training and research opportunities in disease modeling, diagnosis, prevention and health care.
Hammock credited the “heavy lifting” involved in the program operation and grant renewal to Judith Kjelstrom, director of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program and program coordinator of BTTP and DEB; BTTP associate directors Martina Newell-McGloughlin and Karen McDonald; and Marianne Hunter, BTTP grant administrator and program manager of the UC Davis Biotechnology Program.
Students supported by the NIH Biomolecular Technology Training Grant are also members of the UC Davis DEB program, which boasts more than 200 Ph.D students. The training grant includes 50 mentors drawn from 72 departments and 29 graduate groups and programs. Of the mentors, seven are distinguished or chaired professors, five are fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and one is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
UC Davis Cancer Center Closely Linked with Biomolecular Training Program
The UC Davis Cancer Center, directed by Ralph deVere White, is closely linked with the Biomolecular Technology Training Program. The grant's principal investigator Bruce Hammock does research at the Cancer Center.Many other UC Davis faculty are or have been affiliated with the Cancer Center and the grant. Among them: Kit Lam, John Voss and David Segal, (Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine), Paul Knoepfler (Department of Cell Biology and Human Anatomy), John Rutledge (Department of Internal Medicine); Earl Sawaii (Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine); Tilahun Yilma (Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, School of Veterinary Medicine) and David Rocke ( Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering).
Among the affiliates from the different labs:
Kit Lam lab: Diana Lac is a current biotech fellow. Scott Wong was a NIH biotech fellow.
John Voss lab: Silvia Hilt is a current NIH biotech fellow
David Segal lab: Sarah Lockwood was a biotech fellow for two years.
John Rutledge lab: Laura Higgins was a biotech fellow
Tilahun Yilma lab: Fatema Aziz was a biotech fellow
David Rocke lab: Blythe Durbin was a NIH biotech fellow
Paul Knoepfler lab: Benjamin Yuen is a 2011-12 Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scholar. (Knoepfler is the recipient of a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar Research Award for his work in stem cell research.)
Frederick Meyers, executive associate dean of the School of Medicine, directs the HHMI IMBS training grant. Judith Kjelstrom serves as co-director.In their summary statement, NIH officials said that UC Davis “has a long and distinguished history in interdisciplinary scientific research and biotechnology is a notable example of this.”
“The training program has extensive interaction with industrial biotechnologists,” they said, also praising “the leadership and executive management of the training program as both efficient and well-conceived.” Hammock has “enjoyed a long and distinguished career in biotechnology research and education,” the NIH report said. “His research group has made seminal contributions in enzymology, bioanalytical chemistry, toxicology, agricultural chemistry and pharmacology.”
“Particularly noteworthy is his work on the structure, function and inhibition of epoxide hydrolases. He has been a leader on the UC Davis campus in promoting biotechnology, as evidenced by his leadership of this training program and the NIEHS-funded Superfund Basic Research and Training Program. His research efforts are well funded from external sources, and his work is highly regarded nationally and internationally, as reflected in election to the National Academy in 1999.” (NIEHS is the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.)
The NIH training grant in biomolecular technology is one of only four biotechnology training grants in California; the others are at UCLA, Stanford, and The Scripps Institute.
Hammock, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in 1980, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Entomological Society of America. As the principal investigator of the grant that funds the UC Davis Superfund Research Program, he received a $13.2 million, five-year competitive renewal grant in 2010 from NIEHS. He also directs the NIEHS Combined Analytical Laboratory.
Related Links:
About Bruce Hammock
Bruce Hammock Featured in Environmental Factor Newsletter
About the UC Davis Biotechnology Program
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Jan. 5, 2012
Lynn Kimsey with her newly discovered species nicknamed "warrior wasp." (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)DAVIS--“A New Year, a New Bug: How Insects Are Discovered” will set the theme on Saturday, Jan. 14 for the first open house of the year at the Bohart Museum of Entomology on the University of California, Davis.
The event, free and open to the public, is set from 1 to 4 p.m. The Bohart Museum, home of a global collection of more than seven millions specimens, is located in Room 1124 of Academic Surge, corner of California Drive and LaRue Road.
“Visitors will be able to learn how insects are discovered, described, drawn and even named,” said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator.Scores of UC Davis scientists from the Department of Entomology have species named after them. Among them:
Bohart Museum director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology at UC Davis, has described some 200 new species of bees and wasps. She has a genus and tribe of wasps named after her: Kimseyella and Kimseyini.Adelia thorpellaNative pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp, emeritus professor of entomology, has described and named 19 new species of bees, and another is pending from the vernal pool ecosystems. Another species that he discovered, a fairy moth, is named for him: Adela thorpella Powell (1969). Others that are named for him include a parasitoid wasp, Monodontomerus thorpi; a cuckoo wasp, Primeuchroeus thorpi; a long-horn beetle, Cortodera thorpi; and a bee, Andrena (Onagrandrena) thorpi.
Thorp also was one of several co-authors who named a nematode, Bursaphelenchus anatolius. It is so-named because the species came from Anatolia, Turkey; lead author was Robin Giblin-Davis. It is an internal phoretic associate of a sweat bee, genus Halictus, from Turkey. (Phoretic associate means when one organism transports another organism of a different species.)
The nematode was not named for me, but I was one of several coauthors who named the species with Robin Giblin-Davis as the lead author. The species was named “anatolius” since it came from Anatolia (Turkey).
Senior museum scientist Steve Heydon has described 24 new species of parasitoid wasps and has an entire genus of wasps named for him, Heydoniella.
Professor Phil Ward has described 50 new species of ants.Professor Phil Ward, a noted ant specialist, has described 80 new species of ants. He has a number of insects named for him, including a crane fly and a strange ant named Pyramica warditeras (the species name translates from the Greek to mean "Ward's monster.")
The late Richard Bohart (1913-2007), for whom the museum is named, identified more than one million mosquitoes and wasps, many displayed at Bohart Museum, a teaching, research and public service facility that he founded on campus in 1946.Also at all the open houses, visitors can also enjoy a live “petting zoo” with such residents as Madagascar hissing cockroaches and walking sticks. A gift shop, where visitors can purchase t-shirts, sweatshirts, jewelry, insect nets and “insect candy,” is also available.
The Bohart Museum houses the seventh largest insect collection in North America, and is also the home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity.
The Bohart Museum launched its series of weekend openings for the fall season on Saturday, Sept. 24 with “Catch, Collect and Curate: Entomology 101.”
The remaining schedule for the 2011-2012 academic year:
Saturday, Jan. 14, 1 to 4 p.m.: “A New Year, a New Bug, How Insects Are Discovered”
Sunday, Feb. 12, 1 to 4 p.m., “Bug Lovin’”
Saturday, March 10, 1 to 4 p.m., “Hide ‘n’ Seek: Insect Camouflage”
Saturday, April 21: 10 to 3 p.m., UC Davis Picnic Day
Saturday, May 12, 1 to 4 p.m., “Pre-Moth’ers Day”
Sunday, June 3, 1 to 4 p.m., “Bug Light, Bug Bright…First Bug I See Tonight.”
Regular hours are from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Monday through Thursday. It is closed on Fridays and on major holidays. Admission is free.
More information is available on the Bohart website or by contacting Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator at tabyang@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-0493. Due to limited space, group tours will not be booked during the weekend hours.
See video from Good Day Sacramento featuring Lynn Kimsey, Phil Ward and Robbin Thorp at http://gooddaysacramento.cbslocal.com/video/.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Jan. 4, 2012
DAVIS--Joseph DeRisi, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator and professor and vice chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, will speak on two topics, honey bees and malaria, from 10 to 11 a.m. on Monday, Jan. 9, in the main auditorium (Room 2005) of the Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facilityon the UC Davis campus.Joseph DeRisi (Photo courtesy of UC San Francisco)His presentation, "A Seminar in Two Acts: Honey Bees and Malaria," is sponsored by the Biological Networks Focus Group of the Genome Center. Host is Oliver Fiehn, professor in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and the Genome Center.
The Genome and Biomedical Sciences Facility is located at 451 Health Sciences Drive, the Health Sciences District, approximately 160 feet north of Tupper Hall.
DeRisi, a molecular biologist and biochemist, was named the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Grant (also known as "the genius award") in 2004. In 2008, DeRisi won the Heinz Award for Technology, the Economy and Employment. Among his many accomplishments: he designed and programmed a groundbreaking tool for finding (and fighting) viruses -- the ViroChip, a DNA microarray that test for the presence of all known viruses in one step. (See link)
The DeRisi lab drew international attention last year with publications in Public Library of Science journals on malaria research (PLoS Biology) and honey bee research (PLoS One.)
Malaria:
Chemical Rescue of Malaria Parasites Lacking an Apicoplast Defines Organelle Function in Blood-Stage Plasmodium falciparum (published in PLoS Biology, August 2011)
Abstract:
Plasmodium spp. parasites harbor an unusual plastid organelle called the apicoplast. Due to its prokaryotic origin and essential function, the apicoplast is a key target for development of new anti-malarials. Over 500 proteins are predicted to localize to this organelle and several prokaryotic biochemical pathways have been annotated, yet the essential role of the apicoplast during human infection remains a mystery. Previous work showed that treatment with fosmidomycin, an inhibitor of non-mevalonate isoprenoid precursor biosynthesis in the apicoplast, inhibits the growth of blood-stage P.
falciparum. Herein, we demonstrate that fosmidomycin inhibition can be chemically rescued by supplementation with isopentenyl pyrophosphate (IPP), the pathway product. Surprisingly, IPP supplementation also completely reverses death following treatment with antibiotics that cause loss of the apicoplast. We show that antibiotic-treated parasites rescued with IPP over multiple cycles specifically lose their apicoplast genome and fail to process or localize organelle proteins,
rendering them functionally apicoplast-minus. Despite the loss of this essential organelle, these apicoplast-minus auxotrophs can be grown indefinitely in asexual blood stage culture but are entirely dependent on exogenous IPP for survival. These findings indicate that isoprenoid precursor biosynthesis is the only essential function of the apicoplast during blood-stage growth. Moreover, apicoplast-minus P. falciparum strains will be a powerful tool for further investigation of apicoplast biology as well as drug and vaccine developmentHoney Bees:
Temporal Analysis of the Honey Bee Microbiome Reveals Four Novel Viruses and Seasonal Prevalence of Known Viruses, Nosema, and Crithidia (published in PLoS One, June, 2011)
Abstract:
Honey bees (Apis mellifera) play a critical role in global food production as pollinators of numerous crops. Recently, honey bee populations in the United States, Canada, and Europe have suffered an unexplained increase in annual losses due to a phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Epidemiological analysis of CCD is confounded by a relative dearth of bee pathogen field studies. To identify what constitutes an abnormal pathophysiological condition in a honey bee colony, it is critical to have characterized the spectrum of exogenous infectious agents in healthy hives over time. We conducted a prospective study of a large scale migratory bee keeping operation using high-frequency sampling paired with comprehensive molecular detection methods, including a custom microarray, qPCR, and ultra deep sequencing. We established seasonal incidence and abundance of known viruses, Nosema sp., Crithidia mellificae, and bacteria. Ultra deep sequence analysis further identified four novel RNA viruses, two of which were the most abundant observed components of the honey bee microbiome (,1011 viruses per honey bee). Our results demonstrate episodic viral incidence and distinct pathogen patterns between summer and winter time-points. Peak infection of common honey bee viruses and Nosema occurred in the summer, whereas levels of the trypanosomatid Crithidia mellificae and Lake Sinai virus 2, a novel virus, peaked in January.Among those working on the honey bee research and co-authoring the paper was insect virus researcher Michelle Flenniken, a postdoctoral fellow in the Raul Andino lab at UC San Francisco and the recipient of the Häagen-Dazs Postdoctoral Fellowship in Honey Bee Biology at UC Davis.
Among DeRisi's malaria research collaborators is UC Davis molecular biologist Shirley Luckhart, professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology and an advisor in the Entomology Graduate Program.
DeRisi received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1992 from the University of Santa Cruz, and his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1999 from Stanford University.
Related Links:
Joseph DeRisi Lab, UC San Francisco
Joe DeRisi: Biochemist (featured in TED ("Technology, Entertainment, Design" is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading.)
Conversation with Joe DeRisi (New York Times)
Solving Medical Mysteries (YouTube)
Hunting the Next Killer Virus (YouTube)
Joseph DeRisi: Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Joseph DeRisi in Wikipedia
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
Jan. 9, 2012
DAVIS--He did it again.Professor Art Shapiro, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, with the first cabbage white butterfly of the year. He collected it on Jan. 8 in West Sacramento. He has sponsored his beer-for-a-bProfessor Arthur M. Shapiro of the UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology snagged the first cabbage white butterfly of 2012 on Sunday, Jan. 8 in West Sacramento, Yolo County, to win his own beer-for-a-butterfly contest.
Shapiro netted the butterfly (Pieris rapae),a newly emerged male, at 11:50 a.m. under a hazy skies with a temperature reading of 60 degrees.
Shapiro, a noted butterfly expert and distinguished professor, has sponsored the Pitcher of Beer for a Butterfly Contest since 1972 and recalls having lost only three times, each time to one of his graduate students. In keeping with tradition, he offers a pitcher of beer (or the cash equivalent) for the first cabbage white collected in the three-county area of Yolo, Solano and Sacramento.
Shapiro immediately announced he would take his graduate students and their significant others out for a beer in a few days to celebrate. His students are typically his fiercest competitors in the contest, which is designed to aid in his studies of biological response to climate change.
Sunday’s capture date is the second earliest of record in 40 years, the earliest being Jan. 4, 1990. Shapiro said it reflects “the extraordinary sunny and dry weather that has persisted all winter, with warm afternoons, frosty nights, and little cloudiness or fog.”
“There have been numerous high-temperature records set in northern California, both in the valleys and in the Sierra Nevada, “ Shapiro said. “The abnormal conditions cannot be linked causally to global warming but are related somehow to the current La Nina, now in its second year.”
Shapiro noted that many regional first-flight records for butterflies were set during the severe drought of 1975-76, before “ the signature of global warming was observed.”
“In 1976 we had species flying at the end of January that normally come out in March,” Shapiro observed. “If the current weather pattern continues another two weeks, all those records will be at risk.”
The first cabbage white butterfly of 2012. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)He also pointed out that due to the lack of rainfall, germination of herbaceous plants has been very poor. “If butterflies and other insects are tricked by the weather into emerging early, the resources they need will simply not be there!”
Shapiro sponsors the annual contest to draw attention to Pieris rapae and its first flight. "I am doing long-term studies of butterfly life cycles and climate. Such studies are especially important to help us understand biological responses to climate change. The cabbage white is now emerging a week or so earlier on average than it did 30 years ago here."
Shapiro, who is in the field more than 200 days a year, has been defeated only three times since 1972. Adam Porter found the first cabbage white in 1983; and Sherri Graves and Rick VanBuskirk each won the contest in the late 1990s.
Shapiro maintains a website on butterflies at http://butterfly.ucdavis.edu/, where he records the population trends he monitors in Central California. He has surveyed fixed routes at 10 sites since as early as 1972. They range from the Sacramento River delta, through the Sacramento Valley and Sierra Nevada mountains, to the high desert of the western Great Basin. The sites, he said, represent the great biological, geological, and climatological diversity of central California.
Shapiro and biologist/writer/photographer Tim Manolis are the co-authors of "A Field Guide to Butterflies of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento Valley Regions," published in 2007 by the University of California Press.
Shapiro is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Royal Entomological Society, and the California Academy of Sciences.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
