- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The 108th annual UC Davis Picnic Day will include scores of insect-related displays and activities sponsored by the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Entomological events will take place at Briggs Hall; the Bohart Museum of Entomology (Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane); and in the courtyard of Green Hall (formerly Life Sciences).
Free and open to the public (as is parking), it will be the first in-person Picnic Day in nearly three years. The theme is "Rediscovering Tomorrow."
Danielle Rutkowski, doctoral candidate in the lab of associate professor Rachel Vannette, is planning and coordinating the UC Davis Graduate Student Association (EGSA) events.
"We're all so excited that it's in-person again," said Jill Oberski, EGSA president. "Grad students usually run most of the entomology exhibits, but most of the younger graduate students have never been to a 'real' Picnic Day—so we finally have the chance to pass the experience on to them. It's always crazy and exhausting but it's so much fun, and a really great opportunity to engage with the public."
EGSA will be selling a number of t-shirts, both classic attire and new designs. New designs are "UCD Amblypygid," designed by Emma Jochim of the Jason Bond lab (it's EGSA's first arachnid shirt) and the limited-edition 'Mosquito Picnic' for Picnic Day 2022, designed by Oberski. "And we have stickers, masks, and several years' worth of back stock we would love to sell!" Oberski noted, adding that EGSA takes both cash and credit cards. Some of the classic T-shirt designs, such as The Beetles, sell fast. The link to EGSA's online store: https://ucdavisentgrad.
The list of insect-related events includes:
Bug Doctor
In front of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Meet an entomologist and talk about insects! Even bring some from your home or garden for identification! The line-up: three doctoral candidates: Xavier Zahnle of the Jason Bond lab, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.; Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; and Jill Oberski of the Phil Ward lab, 3 to 5 p.m.
Doctor Death
Briggs Hall 122
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Meet forensic entomologist Bob Kimsey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology and learn how how insects are used in forensics! Kimsey is also the faculty chair of the department's Picnic Day.
Honey Bees and Honey
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn about honey bees and the honey production process.
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Briggs Hall Entryway
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Popular insect-themed t-shirts such as ‘The Beetles' are on sale via the Entomology Graduate Student Association.
Lil' Swimmers and Fly-tying
Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
See live insects from streams and ponds from lab of professor Sharon Lawler, and learn the art of fly-tying for fly fishing from members of the Fly Fishers of Davis.
Maggot Art
Green Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Children (and grown-ups) can create art using live maggots dipped in non-toxic, water-based paint. (See news story)
Ants
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Phil Ward lab will get you interested in ants. They'll have posters and photos (some from noted photographer and UC Davis alumnus Alex Wild, curator of entomology at the University of Texas, Austin). Got a question about ants?
Forest Entomology, Medical Entomology, Agricultural Entomology
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn the roles of insects in forest entomology, medical entomology and agricultural entomology. Check out the displays and talk to the entomologists. Among those participating: Agricultural Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor, and his lab will be there, as will forest entomologist and graduate student Crystal Homicz.
Caterpillar Biology
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Grace Horne, a graduate student in the laboratory of Emily Meineke, assistant professor of urban landscape entomology. will display hornworm caterpillars and pupae, and she'll discuss butterfly and moth biodiversity and biology, including urban biodiversity and their interactions with their host plants.
Mosquito Control
In front of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn about how to control mosquitoes and protect yourself. This booth is staffed by the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District.
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Talk with expert entomologists about safely controlling pest insects.UC IPM will give away lady beetles, aka ladybugs.
Butterflies and Change (Bohart Museum of Entomology)
East Academic Surge Entrance
10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
What's happening with California's state insect, the California Dogface Butterfly? And learn about monarch butterflies. Plus, view the Bohart Museum of Entomology's never-before-seen, student-created traveling, display exhibits.
Cockroach Racing
In front of Briggs Hall
11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Entomologists will race cockroaches on tiny tracks to the delight of the crowd. Be there to cheer your favorites.
The 2022 Picnic Day, billed as one of the largest student-run events in the nation, will showcase more than 200 events. Picnic Day chair Amanda Portier and vice chair Jesse Goodman announced that "we strive to bring together people from Davis and beyond to celebrate all that our community has to offer." The schedule includes displays, animal events, performers, and parade floats.
For the complete schedule, access this link. "Please be prepared to show an approved UC Davis Daily Symptom Survey for entrance into some indoor events," the website points out. "For those who are not UC Davis students or employees proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test from the last 72 hours may also be required. Screening is at the discretion of individual exhibits and animal events."
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Kathy Keatley Garvey, communications specialist for the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, wrote the news article on "An Amazing Doctoral Opportunity Few Receive,” in March of 2021. The article won the “writing for newspapers” category. (See https://bit.ly/3MfuaLn)
“When five-year-old Rebecca Jean “RJ” Millena entered her kindergarten class in Concord, Calif., she immediately settled on a career choice: entomology,” Garvey began.
“An ‘About Me' poster hanging in her childhood home in Concord confirms it: ‘When I grow up, I want to be an entomologist.'
“She did and she is.”
Millena, who over a two-year-period worked as a student researcher in the laboratory of UC Davis distinguished professor Jay Rosenheim, studied the bizarre Strepsiptera endoparasites that attack their hosts, the Ammophila (thread-waisted) wasps. Millena went on to receive her bachelor's degree in entomology in 2021, and a rare four-year, full-ride doctoral fellowship from the American Museum of Natural History.
While at UC Davis, Millena studied Ammophila specimens at the Bohart Museum of Entomology, which houses a worldwide collection of more than 30,000 Ammophila (among the Bohart's eight million specimens). As larvae, members of the order Strepsiptera, known as “twisted wings,” enter theirs hosts, including wasps and bees, through joints or sutures.
Millena drew information and inspiration from UC Davis alumnus Arnold Menke, a global authority on Ammophila and author of "The Ammophila of North and Central America (Hymenoptera, Sphecidae).
“Strepsiptera are very unusual among parasites in that the parasite is visible on the outside of the host's body,” Rosenheim explained. “The head of the parasite protrudes between the sclerites on the abdomen. Looking across a growing list of species, RJ has shown that Ammophila species where mothers have more extended contact with their young--because they provision their nests with many, small caterpillars instead of one giant caterpillar-- are at much greater risk of acting as inadvertent vectors of strepsipteran parasites to their young.”
“RJ has shown that this one feature explains something like 90 percent of the total variation across Ammophila species in the risk of parasitism,” Rosenheim said. “Ecology virtually never works in such a predictable way; this is one truly exceptional counterexample of nature being highly predictable. Anyway, RJ's work shows that sometimes parental care can be a double-edged sword; we usually think of parental care as providing enhanced protection of offspring from predators and parasites. In this case, it proves to be the reverse.”
Also quoted in the news story was Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology: “RJ is one of those rare students that is focused, task-oriented and simultaneously creative. She was great fun to have working in the museum.”
Entomology Photo Series Award
Garvey also won the ACE silver award (second-place) for her picture story on “The Flight of the Bumble Bee,” posted June 14, 2021 on her daily (Monday through Friday) Bug Squad blog on the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources website. (See https://bit.ly/3xuoPLN)
Garvey captured in-flight images of a yellow-faced bumble bee, Bombus vosnesenskii, foraging on lupine at Bodega Bay. In her blog, she drew attention to two books: California Bees and Blooms: A Guide for Gardeners and Naturalists (Heyday, 2014), the work of University of California scientists Gordon Frankie, Robbin Thorp, Rollin Coville and Barbara Ertter; and Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton University, 2014), co-authored by Thorp (1933-2019), a UC Davis distinguished emeritus professor of entomology.
ACE, an international association of communicators, educators and information technologists who focus on communicating research-based information, will present the communication awards at its 2022 conference, set June 12-14, in Kansas City, MO.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
This will be both in-person and Zoom seminar. Ali will speak at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, April 20 in 122 Briggs Hall. The Zoom link is https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/
"The talk will broadly be on the behavior and chemical ecology of multi-trophic interactions," Ali says. "This includes plant responses to herbivory, nematode and insect chemical ecology, in agricultural and conservation contexts. Research projects include trophic cascades associated with cover crops, above-below-ground interactions, and the consequences of diet on insect dispersal."
His lab website delves into multi-trophic interactions and chemical ecology.
Ali served as a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University (2011-2013) in ecology and evolutionary biology before joining Penn State faculty in the spring of 2016. He holds a bachelor's degree in biological sciences (2005) and a master's degree in entomology (2008) from the University of Delaware; and a doctorate in entomology (2011) from the University of Florida.
Ali's most recent publications include:
- Cover Crop Selection Affects Maize Susceptibility to the Fungal Pathogen Fusarium verticillioides, published in Trends in Plant Science.
- Plant Nutrition Influences Resistant Maize Defense Responses to the Fall Armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda), published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
- Transcriptomic and Volatile Signatures Associated with Maize Defense against Corn Leaf Aphid, published in BMC Plant Biology.
- Chemical Cues from Entomopathogenic Nematodes Vary Across Three Species with Different Foraging Strategies, Triggering Different Behavioral Responses in Prey and Competitors, published in the Journal of Chemical Ecology.
- Cover Crop Soil Legacies Alter Phytochemistry and Resistance to Fall Armyworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) in Maize, published in Environmental Entomology.
- Herbivore-Induced Plant Volatiles Mediate Behavioral Interactions Between a Leaf-Chewing and a Phloem-Feeding Herbivore, published in Basic and Applied Ecology.
Nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, is coordinating the spring seminars. For Zoom technical issues, contact him at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Entomology Games Team won the championship at the annual meeting of the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America, held April 10-13 in Santa Rosa, by defeating the UC Riverside Entomology Games Team.
As branch champions, the UC Davis team will now advance to the nationals: the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) takes place Nov. 13-16 in Vancouver, British Columbia. UC Riverside will compete as the second-place team.
The UC Davis team, from the Department of Entomology and Nematology, is comprised of doctoral candidate Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab, captain; doctoral candidate Jill Oberski of the Ward lab; doctoral student Erin “Taylor” Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo lab; and doctoral student Madison “Madi” Hendrick of the Ian Grettenberger lab.
The popular event, formerly known as the Linnaean Games, is a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams. The UC Davis team won the preliminaries on April 10 to advance to the championship round on April 11.
Questions dealt with biological control, behavior and ecology, economic and applied entomology, medical-urban-veterinary entomology, morphology and physiology, biochemistry and toxicology, systematics and evolution, integrated pest management and plant-insect interactions, history of entomology, and entomology in popular culture.
Paraphrasing some of the questions:
2. Give the binomial name of the new record-holder for millipede with greatest number of legs, along with its country of origin. (Answers: Eumillipes persephone; Australia)
3. What is a chemical called that is added to an insecticide that enhances the formulation and efficacy, but is not itself toxic? (Answer: an adjuvant)
4. Name the heme containing enzymes that play a role in the detoxification of xenobiotics such as pesticides. (Answer: Cytochrome P450s)
5. What is the most prevalent virus affecting humans that is vectored by Aedes mosquitoes? (Answer: Dengue)
UC Davis has scored three national championships since 2015.
- In 2018, the University of California team (UC Davis/UC Berkeley) won the national championship, defeating Texas A&M. The team included captain Ralph Washington Jr., then a UC Berkeley graduate student with a bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis; doctoral students Brendon Boudinot, Jill Oberski and Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab, and doctoral student Emily Bick of the Christian Nansen lab.
- UC Davis won the national competition in 2016, defeating the University of Georgia. The UC Davis team included captain Ralph Washington Jr., Brendon Boudinot and Emily Bick.
- UC Davis won the national competition in 2015, defeating the University of Florida. The team included captain Ralph Washington Jr., and members Brendon Boudinot, Jessica Gillung and Ziad Khouri.
The Pacific Branch of ESA encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.
ESA will host the Nov. 13-16 meeting as a joint meeting with the Entomological Society of Canada and the Entomological Society of British Columbia. The theme is "Entomology as Inspiration: Insects through Art, Science, and Culture."
The 7000-member ESA, founded in 1889, is the world's largest entomological organization. It is affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, pest management professionals, and hobbyists.
Resources:
- Listen to the 2018 Entomology Games (won by the University of California team, comprised of UC Davis and UC Berkeley students), posted on YouTube (audio only, no video)
- Watch the 2016 National Linnaean Games Championship Round (won by UC Davis), posted on YouTube
- Watch the 2015 National Linnaean Games Championship Round (won by UC Davis), posted on YouTube
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
- Medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, will receive the Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Award
- Doctoral student Erin Taylor Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo laboratory will receive the Student Leadership Award
- Undergraduate student Gwendolyn "Gwen" Erdosh of the Louie Yang lab will receive the inaugural Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship
- The team of doctoral candidate Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab, captain; doctoral candidate Jill Oberski of the Ward lab; doctoral student Erin “Taylor” Kelly of the Geoffrey Attardo lab; and doctoral student Madison “Madi” Hendrick of the Ian Grettenberger lab will compete in the Entomology Games.
The awards luncheon is at 12:15, April 12.
Geoffrey Attardo is a global expert on vectorborne diseases, and renowned for his groundbreaking work on tsetse flies. Attardo, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology in 2017 from the Yale School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, “excels not only as a researcher, but as a teacher, mentor, scientific illustrator, macro photographer,videographer and science communicator,” said UC Davis distinguished professor Bruce Hammock in his letter of nomination. (See news story)
Entomology Games. The Entomology Games is a lively question-and-answer, college bowl-style competition on entomological facts played between university-sponsored student teams. It was formerly known as the Linnaean Games. The preliminary round is from 5 to 6 p.m., April 10. Plans are to hold three rounds with questions from each of the 10 categories: Biological Control, Behavior and Ecology, Economic and Applied Entomology, Medical-Urban-Veterinary Entomology, Morphology and Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology, Systematics and Evolution, Integrated Pest Management and Plant-Insect Interactions, History of Entomology, and Entomology in Popular Culture. (See UC Davis news story)
The final round is from 8 to 10 p.m., April 11. Both the championship team and the runner-up team will represent PBESA at the Entomological Society of America (ESA) meeting, Nov. 13-16 in Vancouver, British Columbia. Last year's national champion was the University of Hawaii, which edged Texas A&M University.
UC Davis has scored three national championships since 2015. In 2018, the University of California team won the national championship, defeating Texas A&M. The team included captain Ralph Washington Jr., then a UC Berkeley graduate student with a bachelor's degree in entomology from UC Davis; doctoral students Brendon Boudinot, Jill Oberski and Zachary Griebenow of the Phil Ward lab, and doctoral student Emily Bick of the Christian Nansen lab.
UC Davis won the national competition in both 2016 and 2015, defeating the University of Georgia in 2016, and the University of Florida in 2015.
A number of other UC Davis faculty and students will participate in the PBESA meeting. (See schedule.)
PBESA encompasses 11 Western states, parts of Canada and Mexico and several U.S. territories.
- In the United States: Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai'i, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming
- U.S. Territories: American Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Johnston Atoll, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Midway Islands, Wake Island
- In Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, Northwest Territories, Saskatchewan, Yukon
- In Mexico: Baja California, Baja California Sur, Sinaloa, Sonora