- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey and doctoral student Grace Horne of the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke are busily coordinating the Department of Entomology and Nematology's activities and displays for the 109th annual UC Davis Picnic Day, set Saturday, April 15.
The "bug" exhibits will be at two sites:
- Briggs Hall, home of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, Kleiber Hall Drive, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and
- Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Theme of the Bohart Museum will be "Bugs, Boom, Bang!" The insect museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, a live "petting zoo" (including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas).
Cockroach races are among the popular activities at Briggs Hall. The roaches will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a specially made race track in front of the building. These are American cockroaches, Periplaneta americana, from a colony kept by the late UC Davis entomology emeritus professor, Charles Judson (1926-2015). Bob Kimsey, who doubles as the advisor of the UC Davis Entomology Club, maintains the roach colony. The athletes, he said, "are ready to race."
The roach races involve a roach track, an air pump (to get the roaches moving), volunteers, and spectators. Sometimes a roach jumps from the track and lands on scurrying feet.
The line-up of entomological events at Briggs Hall also includes:
Bug Doctor
Briggs Hall Entryway
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Meet an entomologist and talk about insects! Bring an insect from your garden to identify.
Maggot Art
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Create maggot art by dipping a live maggot into water-based, non-toxic paint. Voila! Art suitable or framing (or at least a spot on the refrigerator door
Dr. Death
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will display and discuss his work.
Entomology at UC Davis
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Displays of insects, including bees, ants and more
Graduate students, faculty and emeriti will staff the tables
Scavenger Hunt
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There will be several drawers of insects that people can look through to see if they can spot the insects on the check list
Fly-Tying
Briggs Hall courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Fly Fishers of Davis will show you how to tie a fly.
Insect-Themed T-shirt Sales
Briggs Hall entryway
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Members of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) will be selling popular insect-themed t-shirts, including "The Beetles"
Mosquito Control
Briggs Hall entrance
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will be providing information on mosquitoes and how to protect yourself
Other Creepy Crawlies
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
UC Davis doctoral candidate Emma Jochim of the Jason Bond lab and others will display live arachnids, myriapods, tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes and more
UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM)
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn about pests and how to control them from UC IPM scientists. The staff will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs.
The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, headed by director Amina Harris and affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will host a honey tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the courtyard of Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road. "Come taste and learn about UC Davis honey and honey varietals from North America," she said. "Honey available for purchase."
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is chaired by nematologist and professor Steve Nadler. Molecular geneticist-physiologist and professor Joanna Chiu serves as the vice chair.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Labudio is located in Room 128 of the Environmental Horticulture Building, 200 Arboretum Drive, UC Davis.
The public is invited. "Please bring a t-shirt if you'd like to screen print one of our designs on it, too," they said. "Kids can make shirts, too. The event will be indoor/outdoor, so please dress accordingly." No reservations are necessary.
"The students were each assigned an insect species in decline or moving about the planet and becoming invasive in new habitats," said Meineke, an urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor. "The insects students were assigned are among those most impacted by humans, and students were given an opportunity to re-envision how people might interact more gently and intentionally with insects, our small, yet consequential co-inhabitants."
"We are so proud of how the students interacted with this topic," Meineke said. "They were charged with researching their insects and turning that research into designs that could be screen printed on watercolor paper, ceramic tiles to be installed in Briggs 122, and fabric. Their designs are nothing short of spectacular!"
UC Davis distinguished professor Diane Ullman, an artist and entomologist, "helped immensely," said Meineke, adding that she wasn't "an official co-teacher but she essentially acted as one."
Meineke was recently named one of the 12 UC Davis recipients of the prestigious Hellman Fellowships, an annual program supporting the research of early-career faculty. Her project, “Assessing Preservation of Chemical Compounds in Pressed Plants," focuses on whether herbarium specimens collected over hundreds of years harbor chemical compounds that reveal mechanisms responsible for changing insect-plant interactions.
Meineke was among the scholars and artists who helped spearhead the newly created Harvard Museum of Natural History's “In Search of Thoreau's Flowers: An Exploration of Change and Loss," hailed as an examination of the natural world and climate change at the intersections of science, art and history. She helped launch the project in 2017 when she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard University Herbaria. The 648 plant specimens that Henry David Thoreau donated to the museum form the foundation of the exhibit. It opened to the public May 14.
A native of Greenville, N.C., Meineke joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology on March 1, 2020, from the Harvard University Herbaria. As a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, she studied how urbanization and climate change have affected plant-insect relationships worldwide over the past 100-plus years.
She received her bachelor of science degree in environmental science, with a minor in biology, in 2008 from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She obtained her doctorate in entomology in 2016 from North Carolina State University.
Professor Ullman, a celebrated teacher, artist and researcher, is the 2014 recipient of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) National Excellence in Teaching Award and the UC Davis Academic Senate's 2022 Distinguished Teaching Award for undergraduate teaching. She is a fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2014) and the ESA (2011).
When she was singled out for the UC Davis Academic Senate Award, her nominators praised her as providing "superb teaching and mentoring for many years, not only in the Department of Entomology and Nematology but as a leader in the Science and Society program. She has brought art-science fusion alive in innovative ways. Her nominees and students rave about her deep dedication, care, and knowledge in all teaching interactions, as well as her overall commitment to student success. One student nominee summed it up: "My experience in her course last spring was one that lifted my spirits, enriched my education, and strengthened my love for art and science during a time when it was difficult to feel positive about anything.”
Ullman's research encompasses insect/virus/plant interactions and development of management strategies for insect-transmitted plant pathogens. She has worked with many insect vector species (thrips, aphids, whiteflies, leafhoppers, mealybugs) and the plant pathogens they transmit, including viruses, phytoplasma and bacteria.
One of her latest art projects--with colleagues, UC Davis students and community members--is the Sonoran Dreams Art Project in the Garden Apartments of the University Retirement Community, Davis. Handmade ceramic tiles depicting the flora, fauna and symbols of the Sonoran Desert surround the elevator.
Ullman received her bachelor of science degree in horticulture from the University of Arizona and her doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1985. She joined the UC Davis faculty in 1991 after serving as an associate professor of entomology at the University of Hawaii. Her credentials include: chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology, 2004-2005; associate dean for undergraduate academic programs for the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, 2005 to 2014; and co-founder and co-director of the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Program, launched in September 2006.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. The event is free and family friendly.
Among artists represented will be UC Davis graduate student Srdan Tunic; undergraduate students Allen Chew, Francisco Basso and Brittany Kohler; and UC Davis alumna Megan Ma; plus the work of the late scientific illustrator Mary Foley Benson (1905-1992), who worked for the U.S. Department of Food and Agriculture, the Smithsonian before retiring and moving to Davis. She also worked for UC Davis entomologists.
Tunic, a UC Davis candidate for a master's degree in art history, will present a seminar on Benson from 11 a.m. to noon, Oct. 15, in Room 1010 of the TLC Teaching and Learning Complex, 482 Hutchison Drive. (See separate news story on Tunic and see research story on Mary Foley Benson by forest entomologist Malcolm Furniss)
"I will focus on the visual material, and start by saying a few words about the museum, and then talk about Mary's life and art chronologically, paying special attention to her work at UC Davis," Tunic said. "At some point I will briefly touch on scientific illustration and how artists make this sort of work, and near the end, mention other illustrators I encountered during this process, and wrap up motivating people to dive into their local collections."
The family arts-and-crafts activity at the open house will be to "create your own Pokemon card," said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and a UC Davis distinguished professor of entomology. Also planned: eating insects, creating gall ghosts (from oak galls), learning about cochineal dyes, and showing off insect tattoos.
"We would love to have folks come and show off their insect tattoos," Kimsey said.
The UC Davis museum, founded in 1946 by noted entomologist Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), is dedicated to teaching, research and service. It is the home of a global collection of eight million insect specimens. The collection is now the seventh largest in North America and includes terrestrial and fresh water arthropods. The museum is also home of the California Insect Survey, a storehouse of the insect biodiversity of California's deserts, mountains, coast, and the Great Central Valley. In addition, the Bohart features a live "petting zoo" (Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas) and an insect-themed gift shop, stocked with T-shirts, hoodies, jewelry, posters, books and insect-collecting equipment.
The Bohart is open to the public year-around (except for holidays) Monday through Thursday from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m. It is closed to the public on Friday to enable research activities. Admission is free. For more information, access the website or contact the museum at bmuseum@udavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Zemenick, who began work July 1, first traveled to Sagehen while in graduate school and conducted dissertation research there on how plant visitors shape floral microbial communities.
What sparked Ash's interest in entomology? "I first became interested in entomology as an undergraduate student at the University of Michigan. I learned how important insects are in agroecosystems, and how their intricate, overlapping interactions can have strong impacts on sustainable management and crop production."
As a youngster, "I was kind of afraid of bugs--at least when they were in the house--but once I started learning about them I was so fascinated. This was solidified when I took Bug Boot Camp (the Insect Taxonomy and Field Ecology" course taught at the Sagehen Field Station by ant specialist Phil Ward, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology) where I fell in love with parasitoid wasps."
Zemenick, a native of Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich., received a doctorate in ecology from UC Davis in September 2017, studying with Jay Rosenheim, distinguished professor of entomology, and with assistant professor Rachel Vannette, a Hellman fellow.
And now, in a near full-circle move, Zemenick is back home.
The Sagehen Field Station, headquartered in Truckee on a 9000-acre site on the western slope of the Sierra Nevada, has focused on research and teaching since 1951. It serves as the hub of a broader network of research areas known as the Central Sierra Field Research Stations, comprised of not only the Sagehen Creek Field Station, but Central Sierra Snow Laboratory, Onion Creek Experimental Watershed, Chickering American River Reserve, and North Fork Association Lands, according to the website.
The surrounding watershed is also available to researchers and classes through an agreement with the Forest Service and includes extensive stands of yellow pine, mixed conifer, and red fir forests, as well as sagebrush fields, scattered mountain meadows, and fens (marshland).
More than 80 graduate students--including Zemenick--have worked on their projects at Sagehen, completing their degrees on such topics as behavioral studies of dark-eyed juncos, stream runoff modeling, bees/butterflies in mountain montane meadows, and GIS as a tool for reserve master planning.
In addition to managing the Sagehen Creek Field Station, Zemenick will coordinate requests to work at Chickering American River Reserve as well as North Fork Association Lands. As Chickering and the North Fork lands are privately owned, user visits are negotiated with the private land partners.
Zemenick returns to California after serving as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow in the Weber lab at Michigan State University. "I studied how plant-mite interactions directly and indirectly influence leaf microbial communities and subsequent invasibility by pathogens."
"I co-created, built and directed Project Biodiversify, an online repository of teaching tools to promote diversity, inclusion and belonging in STEM classrooms," said Zemenick. The federally funded Michigan State University project "includes how biological research applies to current societal problems and highlighted what it is like to be a biologist. The materials are comprised of examples provided by biologists that self-identify as being part of underrepresented group(s) in STEM (e.g. in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexuality, income, nationality, immigrant status, cognitive and physical ability, etc.)." The project was recently awarded a University Level Excellence in Diversity Award for work promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in biology education.
Zemenick will continue pursuing ecology and environmental science involving plants, insects, microbes, ecological networks, natural history, and discipline-based education research. Leisure time includes such interests as naturalizing, backpacking, climbing and biking. "I hiked the Nüümü Poyo (John Muir) Trail in 2009 and love the mountains," the ecologist related.
(Editor's Note: Science writer Kathleen Wong of the UC Natural Reserve System contributed to this story.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Grettenberger, who fills the vacated position of Larry Godfrey (1956-2007), received his bachelor of science degree in biology, with an ecology, evolution and organismal emphasis (honors Program) in 2009 from Western Washington University, Bellingham, Wash., and his doctorate in entomology in 2015 from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pa. He served as a postdoctoral researcher in the Godfrey lab and later, the Frank Zalom lab, before accepting his current appointment of assistant Cooperative Extension specialist.
Grettenberger's fields of expertise include field and vegetable crops; integrated pest management; applied insect ecology, and biological control of pests.
He targets a wide variety of pests, including western spotted and striped cucumber, beetles, armyworms, bagrada bugs, alfalfa weevils, aphids, and thrips.
Among his current grants:
- Protection of rice from invertebrate pests
- Management of key cotton arthropod pests with insecticides and acaricides, a proactive approach to prepare for the invasion of the tomato leafminer (Tuta absoluta) into California
- Detection, biology and control of the exotic Swede midge (Contarinia nasturtii) for California cole crops
- Management of the western spotted and striped cucumber beetle in melon production
- Biological control of the bagrada bug
- Insecticide resistant alfalfa weevils in the western United States:Quantifying the scope of resistance and implementing a plan to manage the threat
- Insecticide resistance monitoring and evaluation of efficacy of current chemical tactics for managing aphids and thrips in lettuce
How did you get interested in entomology? Can you recall an occasion that sparked your interest?
I had biologist parents, and was drawn into entomology at a pretty young age. I spent plenty of time looking in flowers and turning over logs looking for insects. Once I started thinking about going to graduate school for entomology, I decided to focus on the intersection of agricultural entomology and insect ecology. I wanted to work on applied issues in entomology.
How would you describe yourself?
I like tackling problems, which has worked out well with my work in applied entomology and extension. I can be intensely focused and immensely distracted, which I would say has its pluses and minuses.
What do you like best about your work?
I love working in applied entomology and that I get to use research to better understand pests and work to develop IPM tools. The breadth of crops I cover is both a bit overwhelming but immensely exciting because of the diversity in pest issues, types of tactics that are applicable, and interesting ecological/biological questions among the various crop pests. I also get to work with great people, both within my lab and with all of the various collaborators/cooperators. I have met and worked with a lot of fantastic people this first year, and I also think my lab is off to a great start.
Where were you born and where did you spend your childhood?
I was born in Portland, Ore., but I primarily grew up in Olympia, Wash. As you might imagine, I grew up with lots of rain, but in a beautiful area.
What are your research plans/goals here at UC Davis? What drew you to UC Davis?
Thus far, I have been focused on projects in crops where there has historically seen solid research by UC Davis (such as rice and cotton) and have been developing new projects and collaborations. For better or worse, IPM is never static, so my research will be continually evolving to address pest management needs and has already been shifting this first year. Because I have an extension appointment, stakeholder needs have driven much of my work and this will continue to be a theme.
I was drawn to Davis by the many opportunities it would afford working in agricultural entomology. The department has a great reputation academically and the people in it are great as well. I also would have (and have had) the opportunity to connect with many other great researchers in the UC system, both campus- and county-based. There are many crops and pests to work on. We are quite literally surrounded by crops I work in, including alfalfa, rice, and tomatoes. I even found some alfalfa weevil on my run last weekend.
What do you like to do in your leisure time?
My primary hobby is running, ideally on trails and long distances. I can deal with the nearly zero elevation gain in our area, but I like to get out to where there are some hills. I also like to be outdoors in general and spending time with my family (wife/dog/cat; dog will go on adventure runs with us, cat only gets the backyard).
What would people be surprised to know about you?
I don't like all foods, but I will try basically anything just to see what it tastes like. I think some people are also surprised by the amount of food I can eat at one time.