- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Plans are being finalized for the popular "Day of Science."
Scheduled Saturday, Feb. 18, it is billed as a “free, family friendly educational event for the community where visitors get to meet and talk with UC Davis scientists and see amazing objects and organisms from the world around us,” according to Biodiversity Museum Day chair Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
Eleven museums or collections on campus will showcase their work:
- Anthropology Museum, 328 Young Hall and grounds, noon to 4 p.m.
- Arboretum and Public Garden, Habitat Gardens in the Environmental GATEway, adjacent to the Arboretum Teaching Nursery on Garrod Drive, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.
- Bohart Museum of Entomology, Room 1124 and main hall of the Academic Surge Building, Crocker Lane, 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m.
- Botanical Conservatory, the greenhouses along Kleiber Hall Drive, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- California Raptor Center, 1340 Equine Lane, off Old Davis Road, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Center for Plant Diversity, Sciences Laboratory Building/Esau Science Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
- Nematode Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building/Esau Science Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive, 9 am. to 3 p.m.
- Marine Invertebrate Collection, Sciences Laboratory Building/Esau Science Hall, off Kleiber Hall Drive, 9 am. to 3 p.m.
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, Room 1394, Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
- Paleontology Collection, (Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences) 434 LaRue Road, 12 noon to 4 p.m.
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, Robert Mondavi Institute Brewery and Food Processing facility, Old Davis Road, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (See news story)
The UC Davis Biodiversity Museum Day is traditionally held on Presidents' Day Weekend at various venues on campus. The 2022 event, however, took place March 6 in the UC Davis Conference Center and drew some 1000 visitors. This year, it's back home to the individual departments where scientists will be on hand to greet visitors and answer questions.
Many middle school and high school students attend the event to take the opportunity to consider careers in science.
All participating museums and collections have active education and outreach programs, Yang said, but the collections are not always accessible to the public.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Her seminar also will be virtual. The Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672. A coffee social will take place in 158 Briggs from 3:30 to 4:10 p.m.
Chamberland is a member of the laboratory of Jason Bond, associate dean, UC Davis College of Agricultural and Natural Resources, and professor and the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
“Net-casting spiders (Deinopidae) comprise three genera with enigmatic evolutionary histories. Deinopisand Asianopis, the ogre-faced spiders, are best known for their giant light-capturing posterior median eyes (PME), whereas Menneus does not have enlarged PMEs,” Chamberland says in her abstract. “Molecular phylogenetic studies have revealed discordance between morphology and molecular data. We employed a character-rich, ultra-conserved element (UCE) dataset and a taxon-rich cytochrome oxidase I (COI) dataset to reconstruct a genus-level phylogeny of Deinopidae, aiming to investigate the group's historical biogeography, and examine PME size evolution. Although the phylogenetic results support the monophyly of Menneus and the single reduction of PME size in deinopids, these data also show that Deinopis is not monophyletic. Deinopid biogeographic history reflects the separation of Western Gondwana as well as long-distance dispersal events.”
Chamberland, who studies the evolution and biogeography of spiders, joined the Bond lab in 2021. She holds a doctorate in biology (2020) from the University of Vermont, Burlington, where she studied with Ingi Agnarsson. Her dissertation: "From Gondwana to GAARlandia: Molecular Phylogenetics and Historical Biogeography of Spiders." She received her bachelor's degree in biology and anthropology in 2013 from the University of Vermont.
“As an undergraduate at the University of Vermont, I was introduced to deinopids, the ogre-faced spiders, and it was love at first sight,” Chamberland related. “With a wide range of dispersal propensities and diverse hunting strategies, spiders have been a rich source for me to explore biogeographic and evolutionary questions. I would like to continue my work with historical biogeography and spiders after my postdoc and help foster the upcoming generation of arachnologists. I enjoy teaching, especially through the lens of phylogenetics and systematics, and I am working towards finding a teaching career where I can teach, mentor, and continue to ask evolutionary questions.”
Chamberland is the lead author of “Biogeography and Eye Evolution of the Ogre-faced Spiders," published Oct. 22, 2022 in Scientific Reports and co-authored by Ingi Agnarsson, Iris Quayle, Tess Ruddy, James Starrett and Jason Bond.
Chamberland and Bond co-hosted the 2022 American Arachnological Society Summer Symposium at UC Davis and she also delivered a research presentation at the symposium. At both UC Davis and at the University of Vermont, she has led and taught lab and field techniques, molecular methods and data analyses, and arachnology to high school, undergraduate, and graduate students, resulting in publications on systematics, evolution, and biogeography of spiders.
She earlier served as the invertebrate collections manager at the Zadock Thompson Zoological Collections (2020-2021), University of Vermont.
The department seminars, coordinated by urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, are held on Wednesdays through March 15. (See schedule.) Eight of the 10 will be in-person in 122 Briggs Hall, and all will be virtual.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"We have some fabulous beetle people from taxonomists to ecologists to highlight our great beetle collection," said Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum. "It should be a lot of fun and we look forward to people stopping by and appreciating such a diverse group."
Jonelle Mason, a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) employee and coordinator of Project Learning Tree (PLT) California, an initiative of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (partnered with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection-Urban and Community Forestry Program), will be tabling children's activities in the hallway of the Academic Surge Building. They will include a hands-on peppermint beetle activity.
"We specifically have an activity focused for K-5 called peppermint beetle!" Mason related. "It models how animals use a sense of smell to respond to the environment around them and identifying smells in our daily lives. This is a super fun activity to present and then bring back to kids! It specifically will focus on bark beetles."
Mason, a master herpetologist and a former zookeeper with a bachelor's degree in biology, worked with exotic animals for 12 years before joining the PLT team to continue "my fierce love for nature and environmental education." As a zookeeper, she worked "with some of the largest animals on the planet" and "used animal training to influence thousands of people throughout the country."
PLT "uses trees and forests as windows on the world to increase students' understanding of the environment and actions they can take to conserve it," according to its website. "Since 1976, PLT has reached 145 million students and trained 765,000 educators to help students learn how to think, not what to think about complex environmental issues...PLT "helps develop students' awareness, knowledge, and appreciation of the environment, builds their skills and ability to make informed decisions, and encourages them to take personal responsibility for sustaining the environment and our quality of life that depends on it. From its beginnings in 1976, PLT has exemplified high-quality environmental education."
Cal Fire
Curtis Ewing, a senior environmental scientist with Cal Fire's Forest Entomology and Pathology, will show specimens of "many different invasive and native species that do or could impact forest health in California." They include such specimens as Ips engravers, Western pine beetles, flat-headed borers and various long-horned beetles. Among others on the list: coconut rhinoceros beetles, South American palm weevils, Asian longhorned beetles, emerald ash borers, gold spotted oak borers, Eucalyptus borers, invasive shot hole borers and Mediterranean oak borers.
"I will have a table with displays and a USB microscope hooked up to a screen and specimens," Ewing said, "so people can put different, small, species under the scope."
What should people know about bark beetles and the damage they cause?
"Forest pests (insects and diseases) annually destroy 10 times the volume of timber lost due to forest fires," according to the Cal Fire Forest Entomology and Pathology website. "Native bark beetles took hold in Southern California forests following severe drought years and caused unprecedented tree mortality. The introduced Pitch Canker Disease has attacked Monterey pine along the central coast. Sudden Oak Death, caused by Phytophthora ramorum, has been found in 14 counties in California and has killed thousands of oaks. Cal Fire's forest pest specialists help protect the state's forest resources from native and introduced pests, conduct surveys and provide technical assistance to private forest landowners, and promote forest health on all forest lands."
Burying Beetles
Tracie Hayes, a doctoral candidate and burying beetle researcher in the laboratory of Professor Louie Yang, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will discuss her work and present a video she created, "A Clearance of Death on Behalf of Life" at https://youtu.be/cGLOE7SrbiU. She will field questions about the insect and her research. (See news story)
Folsom Lake College professor Fran Keller, a Bohart Museum scientist and a UC Davis doctoral alumna of entomology, will discuss the beetles she and other scientists collected in Belize.
"In November I started working in the Natural History Museum London Coleoptera collection, working on Belize Cerambycidae to facilitate identification and then catalog specimens for the Belize National Insect Collection," Keller said. "I worked with Larry Bezark, via the internet/email/Google Drive, who is retired from the California Department of Food and Agriculture. There were 28 new country records for Belize and two new species to science that Larry will describe."
"We don't have an exact number but I would say we have over 500 beetle species identified, but there are many more that need identification." (See more information)
UC Davis graduate student Jennifer Cribbs of the Graduate Program of Environmental Policy and Management, will display tree cores and boring tools. She focuses on restoration, botany and forest dynamics. Cribbs holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from Stanford University. Following her graduation, she worked for the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Geological Survey where her job duties ranged from tagging endangered sea turtles at Padre Island National Seashore to leading a field crew focused on assessing the health of white pines in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park.
Arts and Crafts
The family arts-and-craft activity will be to color a drawing of a carrion beetle, the work of Tracie Hayes.
The Bohart Museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey and dedicated to "understanding, documenting and communicating terrestrial arthropod diversity," was founded in 1946 and named for UC Davis professor and noted entomologist Richard Bohart. In addition to its global collection of eight million insect specimens, it houses a live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas; and a year-around gift shop, stocked with insect-themed books, posters, jewelry, t-shirts, hoodies and more.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Zoom lecture, titled "Plants, Insects and Art: Mary Foley Benson's Scientific Illustrations from UC Davis Collections," is the first in the Pence Gallery's Art History Lecture Series. The cost is free but a $10 donation is suggested. Registration is underway at https://bit.ly/3vZOV7t.
Tunic said he will explore her entomological and botanical art, her dynamic life, and her early U.S. Department of Agriculture career in Washington D.C., as well as her World War II piloting and her subsequent settling in California.
UC Davis owns 114 pieces of Benson's work. Many are located in Briggs Hall, home of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and in the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
Tunic anticipates receiving his master's degree in June 2023. A freelance curator and researcher, he is a graduate of the University of Belgrade and University of the Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. He holds degrees in both art history and cultural management.
"A few months later, my art history department granted me the opportunity to do an internship there and I have been diving deep into the life and work of Mary Foley Benson since the spring quarter of 2022. It's really like detective work! I have been surrounded by insects, books and artworks for this whole time--which sounds great in my world--and I am thankful for the whole Bohart Museum team for making this possible."
Tunic has been working independently and collaborating with various art and education initiatives since 2012. He is a co-founder of Trans-Cultural Dialogues (as part of Cultural Innovators Network), Kustosiranje/About and Around Curating, and Street Art Walks Belgrade. He collaborates with art professionals, researching fields such as contemporary art, curatorial practices, street art and graffiti, science fiction, art appropriation, cultural diversity, experiential learning, independent cultural scene and self-management. His work has been published in a number of magazines and journals. (See more about his work at http://srdjantunic.wordpress.com/)
The Pence Gallery, located at 212 D St., lists upcoming talks and lectures on its website.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminar will take place at 4:10 p.m., in 122 Briggs Hall and also will be virtual. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672.
"Flowers are more than just a source of food for bees; they can also act as hubs of microbial transmission," McFrederick says in his abstract. "Some pathogenic microbes can spillover from social bees into solitary species and move through plant-pollinator networks, while others have more restricted host ranges. We use a combination of fieldwork, laboratory assays, molecular ecology, and genomics to understand the evolution and ecology of these microbes. In this talk I will discuss how plant-pollinator networks can help us understand relationships between bee hosts and pathogens and other microbes."
"I will then explore the evolution of pathogenicity in the fungal genus Ascosphaera. While Ascosphaera is best known as the causative agent of chalkbrood disease, the genus is ancestrally commensal and pathogenicity has evolved independently several times. I will finish by discussing the microbiomes of bees that have reverted to a carnivorous lifestyle, the so-called bee vulture. Our ultimate goal is to leverage these symbionts to improve bee health, and we are just beginning to understand many of these weird and wonderful relationships."
McKendrick studies studies symbionts (pathogens, commensals, and mutualists) of wild and solitary bees, with the goal of leveraging these symbionts to protect bee populations and communities. His research includes a stingless species of bee in Costa Rica. He and fellow researchers "set up baits — fresh pieces of raw chicken suspended from branches and smeared with petroleum jelly to deter ants," according to a UC Riverside news story. published Nov. 23, 2021.
"The baits successfully attracted vulture bees and related species that opportunistically feed on meat for their protein," wrote Jules Bernstein. "Normally, stingless bees have baskets on their hind legs for collecting pollen. However, the team observed carrion-feeding bees using those same structures to collect the bait." McFrederick called them "little chicken baskets."
“The vulture bee microbiome is enriched in acid-loving bacteria, which are novel bacteria that their relatives don't have,” McFrederick related. “These bacteria are similar to ones found in actual vultures, as well as hyenas and other carrion-feeders, presumably to help protect them from pathogens that show up on carrion.”
The article noted that "One of the bacteria present in vulture bees is Lactobacillus, which is in a lot of humans' fermented food, like sourdough. They were also found to harbor Carnobacterium, which is associated with flesh digestion."
McFrederick and his colleagues published their research, "Why Did the Bee Eat the Chicken? Symbiont Gain, Loss, and Retention in the Vulture Bee Microbiome?" in the Nov. 21, 2021 edition of the American Society for Microbiology.
McFrederick holds a bachelor's degree in integrative biology (1992) from UC Berkeley, and a master's degree in conservation biology (2004) from San Francisco State University, where he studied with advisor Gretchen LeBuhn. He went on to receive his doctorate in biology in 2010 from the University of Virginia, where he was advised by Douglas Taylor.
Among his awards:
- 2017: Hellman Fellowship
- 2016: Outstanding Faculty Award from the UCR Entomology Graduate Student Association.
- 2010: Award for Excellence in Scholarship in the Sciences from the Vice-President for Research, University of Virginia. The award recognizes “excellence in original scholarship by Ph.D. students at the University”
- 2010: Graduate Teaching Assistant Award from the Department of Biology, University of Virginia
The UC Davis Department of Entomology seminars, coordinated by urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, are held on Wednesdays through March 15. (See schedule.) Eight of the 10 will be in-person in 122 Briggs Hall, and all will be virtual.