- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The 10th annual UC Davis Biodiversity Museum program is going virtual this year through a variety of live webinars and recorded presentations scheduled throughout the month of February. The science-based event traditionally takes place only on one day--the Saturday of Presidents' Weekend, when campus visitors can meet scientists and see and discuss their work.
This year, however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, plans changed, noted spokesperson Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator for the Bohart Museum of Entomology. The biodiversity event will feature 12 museums or collections going virtual:
- Anthropology Museum
- Arboretum and Public Garden
- Bohart Museum of Entomology
- Botanical Conservatory
- California Raptor Center
- Center for Plant Diversity
- Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven
- Nematode Collection
- Marine Invertebrate Collection
- Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology
- Paleontology Collection
- Phaff Yeast Culture Collection
For the schedule, access the live talks and demonstrations and pre-recorded talks and activities on the UC Davis Biodiversity program website.
Here's a handy list of the live talks and demonstrations, by dates:
Tuesday, Feb 9, 12:15 p.m. to 12:45 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Bees and Gardens
Christine Casey, manager of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's half-acre bee garden, the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, located on Bee Biology Road, will discuss what's blooming the garden, and what bees are active. Participants can then ask questions about their own bee gardens. This event will repeat on Tuesday, Feb. 9 and Tuesday, Feb. 23. A summary of the talk and the answers provided will be posted on Feb. 26. Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Wednesday, Feb. 10, 2 to 3 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Social Behavior in Bees (especially orchid bees!)
UC Davis postdoctoral researcher Nick Saleh will discuss and answer questions about social behavior in bees especially orchid bees. He is interested in the behavior of all bees, but focuses his work on orchid bees, a group of tropical bees which form social groups of just two or three individuals. He also will discuss other social behaviors of bees. He holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences from Cornell University, and a doctorate from UC Davis, where he works with associate professor Santiago Ramirez.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Thursday, Feb 11, 1 to 2 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Plants at the Botanical Conservatory
Ernesto Sandoval, director of the Botanical Conservatory, will give a virtual tour through photos and talk about the living plants in their green houses, from the cacao tree to the stinky corpse flower that blooms for just 24-36 hours.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, 10 a.m. to noon
Live Demonstration, Museum Bird Preparation
Irene Engilis, collections manager of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and a team of students and staff will demonstrate how to prepare a dead bird as a scientifically valuable museum specimen. They will answer questions about the process and how they study birds both in the museum and in the wild. This includes a prerecorded presentation from 10 to 10:20, followed by a 20-minute pre-recorded presentation, and then a live question and answer session.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Live Talk: Phaff Yeast Collection Presentation
A 20-minute pre-recorded presentation on the Phaff Yeast Collection is set from 10 to 10:20, followed by a live question-and-answer session. Emeritus Professor Marc-André Lachance, recently retired from Western University in Ontario, Canada and a UC Davis alumnus, will discuss his global yeast collecting expeditions.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, 11 a.m. to noon
Live Talk: All About Ants
Rising entomologists Jill Oberski and Ziv Lieberman, doctoral students of major professor Phil Ward, will host a question-and-answer session "all about the world of ants," followed by a 15-minute talk by doctoral candidate Zach Griebenow about his ant evolution research. Griebenow will answer questions following his presentation. There also will be an ant talk on Feb. 20 from 11 a.m. to noon with their major professor Phil Ward. Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, noon to 2 p.m.
Live Demonstration: Museum Mammal Preparation
Irene Engilis, collections manager of the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, and a team of students and staff will show how to prepare a dead mammal as a scientifically valuable museum specimen. They will answer questions about the process and how they study mammals, both in the museum and in the wild.
Saturday, Feb. 13, 1 to 2 p.m
Live Talk: Raptor Diversity
Julie Cotton, education director of the California Raptor Center, located on Old Davis Road, will answer questions and discuss birds of prey, wildlife rehabilitation and the diversity of raptors.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 13, 2 to 4 p.m.
Live Talks: Anthropology and Ask an Anthropologist
- Faculty and staff from the Department of Anthropology will present a series of talks. Questions are encouraged throughout the event, and there will also be a special time at the end to "Ask An Anthropologist."
- 2 to 2:15: "Animal Ecology in Precontact California"--Jelmer Eerkens
- 2:15 to 2:30: "Gorillas, Poop, and Nematodes--Neetha Iyer
- 2:30 to 2:45: "Reconstructing Human Evolution: A 3-D Jigsaw Puzzle--Mayowa Adegboyega,
- 2:45 to 3 p.m: "Paleolithic Stone Tool Technology at Nihewan Basin, P.R. China"--Corey Johnson
- 3 to 3:15 p.m. "Zoonotic Disease and Andean Camelid Domestication"--Kathy Morucci https://www.youtube.com/watch/Q4076iRb9tk
- 3:15 to 3:30: Netting Dovekies in NW Greenland--Erika Ebel
- 3:30 to 3:45, "Spirits of the Animals: Precontact and Contemporary Inuit Art"-- Christyann Darwent
- 3:45-4:00 p.m. Ask an Anthropologist
Monday, Feb. 15, noon to 1 p.m.
Live Talk: All About Heliconius Butterflies
UC Davis postdoctoral fellow Kathy Darragh will deliver her second live talk, answering questions about the Heliconius tropical butterflies. She earlier presented a talk on Feb. 7. Click here for the presentation in Spanish. She holds a bachelor's degree in zoology and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge (England). During her Ph.D. she studied in the lab of Chris Jiggins, investigating the pheromones of Heliconius butterflies, focusing on chemical ecology, behavior and genetics.
Thursday, Feb. 18, 1 to 2 p.m.
Live Talk: 'Murder Hornets' with Lynn Kimsey
Professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology, will discuss Giant Asian hornets (Vespa mandarinia), recently discovered in Canada and Washington State. The news media has nicknamed them "murder hornets."
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
Saturday, Feb. 20, 11 a.m. to noon
Live Talk, Questions and Answers: All About Ants, Part II
Entomology professor Phil Ward will host a fun and lively question-and-answer session, "All About Ants," based on his many years collecting and studying ants from around the world.
Tuesday, Feb. 23, 12:15 to 12:45
Live Talk: All About Bees and Gardens
This will be a live question-and-answer session with Christine Casey, manager of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven. She will discuss what's blooming in the Davis garden and what bees are active.
Access this link to obtain the Zoom link, http://biodiversitymuseumday.ucdavis.edu/live-programs.html
For the pre-recorded presentations and activities, check this site.
To help support the Biodiversity Museum Day, contributions are being accepted through a month-long crowdfunding campaign program at https://crowdfund.ucdavis.edu/project/24310
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Anecdoctal information recently published in sciencedirect.com
"These people have one thing in common: they develop a tolerance to bee sting," wrote lead author Wei Yang, an oncologist from China and two associates. The co-authors pointed out that "It reminds us the story of the discovery of cowpox and the eventual victory of humans over this disease (Bennett and Baxby, 1996)."
Page, not involved with the proposed research, is internationally known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. He is the author of the newly published book, The Art of the Bee: Shaping the Environment from Landscapes to Societies.
The pre-program of interviews and questions will include an interview with retired UC Davis Medical Center nurse Carolyn Wyler of Sacramento, a passenger on the ill-fated Grand Princess cruise ship.
The main program, from 5 to 7 p.m., will begin with a welcoming address by UC Davis Chancellor Gary May. The panelists:
- Dr. Robert Gallo, who co-discovered that HIV causes AIDS, is the Homer and Martha Gudelsky Distinguished Professor in Medicine; co-founder and director of the University of Maryland School of Medicine's Institute of Human Virology; and co-founder of the Global Virus Network.
- Kate Broderick, who is leading an INOVIO research team in San Diego to develop a DNA vaccine for COVID-19,
- Dr. Dean Blumberg, professor and chief of Pediatric Infectious Diseases, UC Davis Health
- Dr. Allison Brashear, dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine., dean of the UC Davis School of Medicine.
Also interviewed will be Dr. Atul Malhotra, professor of Medicine, Pulmonology, Critical Care, UC San Diego Health, and Dr. Stuart H. Cohen, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases and director of Hospital Epidemiology and Infection Control, UC Davis School of Medicine.
Leal, a fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, a member of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology faculty and a former chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, has organized and moderated two other COVID-19 symposiums. The first symposium is online at https://bit.ly/2VurK3Z and the second at https://bit.ly/3b8TAau.
Leal may be reached at wsleal@ucdavis.edu for more information.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His talk, free and open to the public, is sponsored by the UC Davis Emeriti Association and the UC Davis Retirees' Association.
“Honey bees exhibit complex social behavior that rivals our own,” Page says. “It is fundamentally bound within a social contract much like ours that makes the basic social structure inescapable, a consequence of living together in family groups. Social structures evolve by natural selection operating on the final product, the colony as a reproductive unit. The structures themselves are reverse engineered.”
“I will show how selection on the economy of the colony shapes structures from nest and social architecture to gene networks.”
Page is a UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Professor, an honor awarded in January; and a Regents Professor Emeritus and University Provost Emeritus from Arizona State University, Tempe. He retired from UC Davis in May 2004 after chairing the Department of Entomology, now the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Born and reared in Bakersfield, Kern County, Rob received his bachelor's degree in entomology, with a minor in chemistry, from San Jose State University in 1976. After obtaining his doctorate from UC Davis in 1980, he served as assistant professor at The Ohio State University before joining the UC Davis entomology faculty in 1989 as an associate professor. He began working closely with Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., (the father of honey bee genetics) for whom the university's bee facility is named. Together they published many significant research papers.
Page chaired the Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004, when Arizona State University recruited him to be the founding director of the School of Life Sciences of Arizona State University (ASU). His ASU career advanced to dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost.
Page is known for his research on honey bee behavior and population genetics, particularly the evolution of complex social behavior. One of his most salient contributions to science was to construct the first genomic map of the honey bee, which sparked a variety of pioneering contributions not only to insect biology but to genetics at large.
At UC Davis, he maintained a honey bee-breeding program for 24 years, from 1989 to 2015, managed by bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk at the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility. They discovered a link between social behavior and maternal traits in bees. Their work was featured in a cover story in the journal Nature. In all, Nature featured his work on four covers from work mostly done at UC Davis.
Page and his lab pioneered the use of modern techniques to study the genetic basis of social behavior evolution in honey bees and other social insects. He was the first to employ molecular markers to study polyandry and patterns of sperm use in honey bees. He provided the first quantitative demonstration of low genetic relatedness in a highly eusocial species.
His work has garnered a significant impact in the scientific community through his research on the evolutionary genetics and social behavior of honey bees. He was the first to demonstrate that a significant amount of observed behavioral variation among honey bee workers is due to genotypic variation. In the 1990s, he and his students and colleagues isolated, characterized and validated the complementary sex determination gene of the honey bee; considered the most important paper yet published about the genetics of Hymenoptera. The journal Cell featured their work on its cover. In subsequent studies, he and his team published further research into the regulation of honey bee foraging, defensive and alarm behavior.
Page has authored than 250 research papers, including five books: among them “The Spirit of the Hive: The Mechanisms of Social Evolution,” published by Harvard University Press in 2013. He is a highly cited author on such topics as Africanized bees, genetics and evolution of social organization, sex determination, and division of labor in insect societies. His resume shows more than 18,000 citations.
Highly honored by his peers, Page is a fellow of a number of organizations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the California Academy of Sciences, the Entomological Society of America, and organizations in Germany and Brazil. He received the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award, known at the Humboldt Prize, the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists. He received the 2018 Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
The UC Davis Retiree Center periodically holds noon educational seminars ("BrainFood Talks") featuring timely speakers. For more information, contact the UC Davis Retiree Center at (530) 752-5182 or retireecenter@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bee scientist James Nieh, a UC San Diego professor in the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Division of Biological Sciences, will present the first fall quarter seminar hosted by UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Nieh will speak on "Animal Information Warfare: How Sophisticated Communications May Arise from the Race to Find an Advantage in a Deadly Game Between Honey Bees and Their Predators" at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 25 in 122 Briggs Hall. Brian Johnson, associate professor of entomology, is the host.
"In addition to the classical arm race that has evolved between predators and prey, information races also occur, which can lead to the evolution of sophisticated animal communication," Nieh says in his abstract. "Such information can shape the food web and contribute to the evolution of remarkable communication strategies, including eavesdropping, referential signaling and communication within and between species, including between predators and prey."
"I focus on the world of information exchange (acoustic, olfactory and visual) that has co-evolved between Asian honey bees (Apis cerana, A. florea, and A. dorsata) and their predators, the Asian hornets (Vespa velutina and V. mandarinia)," Nieh says. "I will explore how and why such information races occur through the remarkable examples provided by these high social insects."
He presented a TED talk on "Bees and Us: an Ancient and Future Symbiosis" in July 2019.
A native of Taiwan, Nieh grew up in Southern California and received his bachelor's degree in organismic and evolutionary biology in 1991 from Harvard University, Cambridge, and his doctorate in neurobiology and behavior from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., in 1997. He subsequently received an NSF-NATO postdoctoral fellowship to study at the University of Würzburg in German. A Harvard junior fellowship followed.
Nieh joined the faculty of the Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution in 1997 as an assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 2007 and professor in 2009. He served as vice chair of the section from 2009 to 2014, and as chair from 2014 to 2017.
His latest co-authored research, published in the journal Chemosphere in 2019, is titled Combined Nutritional Stress and a New Systemic Pesticide (flupyradifurone, Sivanto®) Reduce Bee Survival, Food Consumption, Flight Success, and Thermoregulation.
Assistant professor Rachel Vannette is coordinating the fall quarter seminars. (See list of seminars.)She may be reached at rlvannette@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Lynn Kimsey (lskimsey@ucdavis.edu), director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and UC Davis professor of entomology, is coordinating the event, with Professor Neal Williams assisting.
Thorp, 85, passed away Friday, June 7 at this home in Davis. He would have been 86 on Aug. 26.
Thorp, a member of the UC Davis entomology faculty for 30 years, from 1964-1994, achieved emeritus status in 1994 but continued to engage in research, teaching and public service until a few weeks before his death.
A tireless advocate of pollinator species protection and conservation, Thorp was known for his expertise, dedication and passion in protecting native pollinators, especially bumble bees, and for his teaching, research and public service. He was an authority on pollination ecology, ecology and systematics of honey bees, bumble bees, vernal pool bees, conservation of bees, native bees and crop pollination, and bees of urban gardens and agricultural landscapes.
“Robbin's scientific achievements during his retirement rival the typical career productivity of many other academic scientists,” said Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. “His contributions in support of understanding bee biodiversity and systematics are a true scientific legacy.
Said Kimsey: "Robbin had a long, well-respected career in pollination biology and bee taxonomy, but when he retired, he became even more engaged. He became the go-to person for everyone working on pollination in the western states. Many careers were made with his assistance."
"I've known Robbin since I was a graduate student at UC Davis," Kimsey said. "Even though he wasn't my major professor, my project was on bees and he was incredibly helpful and supportive. His enthusiasm about pollinators and bees in particular actually grew after he retired, and he continued helping students and researchers and was the backbone of so much research. His support and kindness was matched by his undemanding assistance and expertise. What a terrible loss to his family and to the research and conservation communities."
In his retirement, Thorp co-authored two books Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014). Locally, he was active in research projects and open houses at the Bohart Museum of Entomology and the Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee garden on Bee Biology Road operated by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. He detected and identified more than 80 species of bees in the haven.
Born Aug. 26, 1933 in Benton Harbor, Mich., Thorp received his bachelor of science degree in zoology (1955) and his master's degree in zoology (1957) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned his doctorate in entomology in 1964 from UC Berkeley, the same year he joined the UC Davis entomology faculty. He taught courses from 1970 to 2006 on insect classification, general entomology, natural history of insects, field entomology, California insect diversity, and pollination ecology.
Every summer from 2002 to 2018, Thorp volunteered his time and expertise to teach at The Bee Course, an annual workshop sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History and held at the Southwestern Research Station, Portal, Ariz. The intensive 9-day workshop, considered the world's premiere native bee biology and taxonomic course, is geared for conservation biologists, pollination ecologists and other biologists.
Highly honored by his peers, Thorp was named a fellow of the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco in 1986; recipient of the Edward A. Dickson Emeriti Professorship of UC Davis in 2010; and recipient of the UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Award in 2015. Other honors included: member of the UC Davis Bee Team that won PBESA's Team Award in 2013. In addition, he was a past president (2010-2011) of the Davis Botanical Society, and former chair (1992-2011) of the Advisory Committee for the Jepson Prairie Reserve, UC Davis/Natural Reserve System.
Professor Neal Williams, who organized a symposium in Dr. Thorp's honor at the 2019 Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America (PBESA) meeting in San Diego, said: ‘Through his tireless efforts in research, advocacy and education, he has inspired a new generation of bee researchers…I like many others, feel truly honored, to have received the mentoring of Robbin and to have him as a colleague.”
Williams said the PBESA symposium was “perhaps the greatest honor one can receive from close colleagues--a special symposium honoring him and his contributions to the field of bee biology and pollination. We designed the symposium to honor the impact of Dr. Thorp, on the field of bee biology and conservation, but at the same time present innovative research that brings together bee and pollination biology researchers."
An authority on the critically imperiled Franklin's bumble bee, Bombus franklini, Thorp began monitoring the bumble bee population in 1998 in its narrow distribution range of southern Oregon and northern California. He had not seen it since 2006 and was instrumental in placing the bee on the Red List of Threatened Species of the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN). He was the former regional co-chair of the North America IUCN Bumblebee Specialist Group.
In August of 2016 a documentary crew from CNN, headed by John Sutter, followed Thorp to a meadow where Thorp last saw Franklin's bumble bee. Sutter wrote about Thorp, then 82, in a piece he titled "The Old Man and the Bee," a spinoff of Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."
Those who plan to attend the celebration of life, may make reservations at https://bit.ly/2lLG20E.