- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Nominator Steve Nadler, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, praised Page as “a pioneer researcher in the field of behavioral genetics, an internationally recognized scholar, a highly respected author, a talented and innovative administrator, and a skilled teacher responsible for mentoring many of today's top bee scientists.”
“Robert Page is arguably the most influential honey bee biologist of the past 30 years,” Nadler wrote in his letter of nomination. The award, administered by the UC Davis Emeriti Association, honors outstanding scholarship work or service performed since retirement by a UC Davis emeritus.
Page will receive the award--a plaque and a cash prize of $1000--at a luncheon hosted by Chancellor Gary May on Monday, Jan. 28 in the UC Davis Conference Center. Two recipients of the Edward Dickson Emeriti Professorship Award—Caroline Chantry and Anthony Phillips (both pediatrics)--also will be honored.
Page, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1980, joined the UC Davis faculty in 1989 and served as the chair of the Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004, the year he gained emeritus status and the year Arizona State University recruited him for what would be a series of top-level administrative roles. He continues his research, teaching and public service in both Arizona and California, but now resides in California, near Davis, with his family.
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.
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.
In addition to his pioneering work on the first genetic map of any social insect--demonstrating that the honey bee has the highest recombination rate of any eukaryotic organism mapped to date--Page was personally involved in genome mappings of bumble bees, parasitic wasps and two species of ants. His most recent work focuses on the genetic bases to individuality in honey bees; demonstrating genetic links between pollen and nectar collection, tactile and olfactory learning characteristics, and neuroendocrine function. This work provides the most detailed understanding to date of the molecular and genetic bases to task variation in a social insect colony.
He 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 onsuch 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.
In 2004, Page was recruited by ASU as the director of the School of Life Sciences of Arizona State University (ASU). He organized three departments--biology, microbiology and plant sciences, comprising more than 600 faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff--into one unified school. As its founding director, he established the school as a platform for discovery in the biomedical, genomic and evolutionary and environmental sciences. He also established ASU's Honey Bee Research Facility.
His ASU academic career advanced to a number of titles: dean of Life Sciences; vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences; and university provost. Today he holds the titles of provost emeritus of ASU and Regents professor emeritus, as well as UC Davis department chair emeritus, professor emeritus, and now distinguished emeritus professor.
Page's colleagues laud his strategic vision, his innovative leadership, and his stellar contributions to science.
James R. Carey, distinguished professor of entomology at UC Davis, who continues to work with Dr. Page on research projects, describes him as "one of the most gifted scientists, administrators, and teachers I have had the privilege to know in 30 years in academia.”
Colleague Bert Hoelldobler, an ASU professor of life sciences, said Page is “the leading honey bee geneticist in the world. A number of now well-known scientists in the U.S. and Europe learned the ropes of sociogenetics in Rob's laboratory.”
Bee breeder-geneticist Susan Cobey, former manager of the Laidlaw facility and now of Washington State University, praised Page's major contributions to the beekeeping industry, including the Page-Laidlaw Closed Population Breeding Theory. This has offered a practical system of stock improvement for honey bees, used worldwide, she said. “It's a challenge, as the queen mates in flight with numerous drones and selection is based upon complex behaviors at the colony level, influenced by the environmental.” She has applied this theory throughout her career, developing and maintaining a population of Carniolan bees, now in their 36th generation.
Among Page's many honors:
- Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
- Awardee of the Alexander von Humboldt Senior Scientist Award (the Humboldt Prize - the highest honor given by the German government to foreign scientists)
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Elected to the Leopoldina - the German National Academy of Sciences (the longest continuing academy in the world)
- Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin
- Fellow of the Entomological Society of America
- Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences
- Elected to the Brazilian Academy of Science
- Recipient of the James W. Creasman Award of Excellence from the Arizona State University Alumni Association
- Fellow, Carl Friedrich von Siemens Foundation, Munich, Germany, September 2017-August 2018
- Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Award from UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Native pollinator specialist Robbin Thorp of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology received the UC Davis Distinguished Emeritus Award in 2015. He served on the faculty from 1964 to 1994. He is the co-author of Bumble Bees of California: An Identification Guide (2014, Princeton University Press) and California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (2014, Heyday Books).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Mrs. Montague worked with Extension apiculturist Eric Mussen in research and outreach programs, including the “Adopt a Scientist Program,” which linked university researchers with high school age students to encourage young people to pursue careers in science, particularly in the field of agriculture and natural resources.
She and Mussen co-authored “Adopt a Scientist—UC Davis,” published in 1997 in the Entomological Society of America's journal, The American Entomologist.
She also co-authored, with Mussen and other scientists, “The Effects of Chlortetracycline of Honey Bee Worker Larvae Reared in Vitro,” published in 1992 in the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology in 1992.
Mrs. Montague received two degrees from UC Davis: her bachelor of science degree in horticulture in 1963 and her master's degree in 1969. She joined the UC Davis workforce in 1967, beginning her career as an arborist, and retiring in 2001 with 33 years and four months of service to the university.
At the UC Davis Department of Entomology, she worked in several laboratories, including the lab of the late Charles Judson, an insect physiologist. “MaryAnn was a cheerful enthusiastic person,” recalled Bruce Hammock, distinguished professor of entomology who holds a joint appointment with the UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center.
A native of Deer Lodge, Mont., MaryAnn was born Jan. 9, 1941, one of three children born to Claus Wohlers and Mary Cleaveland Wohlers. Maryann spent her early years in Montana, and then moved to Berkeley in 1953 with her mother, Mary, and brother Norman.
A longtime Dixon resident and known as a talented artist, she taught art at the Davis and Dixon senior centers and participated in art exhibits throughout the area, her friends recalled. She exhibited her watercolors at numerous art shows. She joined the Baha'I Faith in 1965. Her other interests included researching her family history, and attending the Gorman Museum at UC Davis.
Married twice but with no children, she was preceded in death by most of her family members. She is survived by six nieces and nephews: the children of her late sister, Beth Tietjen of New Mexico; and three nieces and nephews, the children of her late brother, Norman Wohlers of Davis.
Services will be held at 10 a.m., Monday, July 16 at the Smith Funeral Home, located at 116 D St., Davis. Burial will follow in the Davis Cemetery on Pole Line Road.
(Editor's Note: See obituary on the Smith Funeral Home website.)