- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
DAVIS--Monarch genetics expert Christine Merlin, assistant professor in the Department of Biology, Texas A&M University, is among the speakers booked for the spring seminar series hosted by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
Merlin will speak on "Monarch Butterfly Circadian Clock: from Clockwork Mechanisms to Control of Seasonal Migration." She initially was scheduled to present a seminar last June, but it was cancelled.
Here's the list of speakers for the spring seminars, scheduled from April 5 through June 7, as announced by coordinator Christian Nansen, assistant professor of entomology. All seminars will be held on Wednesdays from 4:10 to 5 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. More information is pending.
Wednesday, April 5: Yan Zhu, UC Riverside
Topic: "Computational Entomology"
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor and vice chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 12: Jay Rosenheim, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Topic: "Fitness Limiting Factors in an Uncertain World: A Case Study with Pollen Limitation"
Host: Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 19: Sharon Lawler, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and graduate student Erin Donley
Topic: "Effects of Water Hyacinth and Its Management on Aquatic Vertebrates"
Host: Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, April 26: Stacy Hishinuma, doctoral candidate, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Topic: "Pityophthorus juglandis, the Pathogenic Bungus, Geosmithia morbida, and Host Species in Thousand Cankers Disease in California"
Host: Steve Seybold, chemical ecologist/affiliate, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 3: Brian Bahder, assistant professor, University of Florida
Topic: "Insect Vectors of Phytoplasmas in Palms: Past and Present Research"
Host: Frank Zalom, distinguished professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 10: Fernanda Valdovinos, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona
Topic: "Elucidating Ecological Complexity with Mechanistic Approaches to Networks"
Host: Steve Nadler, professor and chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 17: Jonathan Gershenzon, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology
Topic: Pending
Host: Rick Karban, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 24: Omar Akbari, assistant professor of entomology, UC Riverside
Topic: "Developing Gene Drives to Manipulate the Fate of Wild Populations"
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor and vice chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, May 31: Christine Merlin, assistant professor, Texas A&M
Topic: "The Monarch Butterfly Circadian Clock: from Clockwork Mechanisms to Control of Seasonal Migration"
Host: Joanna Chiu, associate professor and vice chair, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, June 7: Niels Holst, senior researcher, Aarhus University's Department of Agroecology, Entomology and Plant Pathology, Denmark
Topic: Pending
Host: Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Further information is available from Nansen at chrnansen@ucdavis.edu or (530) 752-2728.
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminar, sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will be hosted by assistant professor Joanna Chiu.
Merlin joined Texas A&M's Department of Biology in the fall of 2013 and is a member of the Center for Biological Clocks Research.
The eastern North American monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) has emerged as a powerful model system to study animal circadian clocks and their role in an unconventional output, the photoperiod-induced long-distance migration," Merlin says in her abstract.
"Circadian clocks are endogenous 24-hour timekeepers that coordinate nearly all of the animal physiology and behavior to its environment to tune specific activities at the most advantageous time of the day. Monarchs use a circadian clock to navigate to their overwintering sites during their seasonal long-distance migration. The clock time-compensates for the movement of the sun across the sky over the course of the day and regulates the sun compass output in the brain. Circadian clocks could also be used to time the monarch seasonal departure from their breeding grounds, and consequently regulate the genetic/epigenetic program controlling migratory physiology and behavior."
In a news story written by Vimal Patel of the Texas A&M communications office, Merlin is described as zeroing in on "unraveling the mysteries of the migration and the role of internal clocks in the process."
Merlin was quoted as saying: "It's incredible how such a fragile insect can complete a long-range migration so demanding. Every piece of it fascinates me, from how it occurs to why they go precisely where they go."
An excerpt from Patel's piece:
"While she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the laboratory of Prof. Steven Reppert, Merlin and colleagues showed that the clocks necessary for flight orientation lie in the creatures' antennae -- a departure from the previous conventional wisdom that the brain controlled the mechanism, given that it controls behavioral rhythmicity in virtually every other animal, including humans.
"The conclusion stemmed from Merlin's and her co-workers' collective curiosity concerning a decades-old anecdote. Around 50 years ago, entomologist Fred Urquhart found that Monarchs became disoriented after he clipped off their antennae. Since then, it had remained just a suspicion until the Massachusetts team confirmed it with more rigorous research."
"The team's experiment exploited technology in a way Urquhart, who merely observed the Monarchs in flight, could not at the time. They used a plastic barrel-like device called a Mouritsen-Frost flight simulator in which a butterfly is connected by tungsten wire to an output system that indicates which direction it is flying. The results were clear: The antennae-less Monarchs flew in every which direction, while those with intact antennae flew southwesterly, the migratory direction."
Merlin says she's interested in the role of the circadian clock in the induction of the migration. "Migration begins every year in the fall, when the day lengths change," she says. "The shortened day lengths might be a cue for the monarchs to start their migration. And if we can show this is the case and that the circadian clock is involved, we can now start to understand the genetic program that is allowing the migratory behavior."
A native of France, Merlin received her bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees majoring in animal biology, invertebrate physiology and insect physiology, respectively, at the University Paris 6 Pierre and Marie Curie in France. She accepted a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Massachusetts in 2007.
Related Links:
- Christine Merlin Lab
- A recent story involved Merlin's partnership with the Texas A&M Center for Mathematics and Science Education's Craig Wilson, along with local mayors and resident monarch enthusiasts within the Bryan-College Station community.