- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology will launch its fall quarter seminars on Wednesday, Sept. 25.
Coordinated by assistant professor and community ecologist Rachel Vannette, the seminars will take place at 4:10 p.m., every Wednesday in Room 122 of Briggs Hall through Dec. 5 except on Nov. 20 (no seminar due to the Entomological Society of America meeting in St. Louis, Mo).
The schedule:
Sept. 25
James Nieh, professor, Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Department of Biological Sciences, UC San Diego
Topic: "Animal Information Warfare: How Sophisticated Communication May Arise from the Race to Find an Advantage in a Deadly Game Between Honey Bees and their Predators" (See lab website)
Host: Brian Johnson, associate professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 2
Nathan Schroeder, assistant professor, Department of Crop Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Topic: "Stem Cells and Neurobiology of Nematodes"
Host: Shahid Saddique, assistant professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 9:
John Mola, doctoral candidate, Neal Williams lab, Graduate Group in Ecology
Exit seminar: "Bumble Bee Movement Ecology and Response to Wildfire." Mola specializes in bee biology, pollinator ecology and population genetics.
Host: Neal Williams, professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 16:
Rebecca Irwin, professor of applied ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, N.C.
Topic: "The Role of Floral Traits in Pollination and Bee Disease Transmission." She specializes in the ecology and evolution of multiple-species interactions, pollination biology, and species invasions
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Oct. 23:
Julián Hillyer, director of the program in career development and associate professor of biological sciences, Vanderbilt Institute for Infection, Immunology and Inflammation, Nashville, Tenn.
Topic: "Not So Heartless: Functional Integration of the Immune and Circulatory Systems of Mosquitoes"
Host: Olivia Winokur, graduate student, Chris Barker lab
Link to Seminar
Oct. 30:
Takato Imaizumi, professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington, Seattle
Topic: Circadian Timing Mechanisms in Plant-Pollinator Interaction"
Host: Joanna Chiu, associate professor and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology
Link to Seminar
Nov. 6:
Brock Harpur, assistant professor, Department of Entomology, Purdue University
Topic: "Beekeeping in the 21st Century: Can We Incorporate Genomics into Beekeeping?"
Host: Santiago Ramirez, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Evolution and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences
(Seminar Not Available)
Nov. 13:
Don Cippollini, director of environmental sciences and professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Wright State University
Topic: "The Potential for Host Switching via Ecological Fitting in the Emerald Ash Borer-Host Plant System"
Link to Seminar
Nov. 20:
No seminar (meeting of Entomological Society of America in St. Louis, Mo.)
Dec. 4:
Jackson Audley, doctoral candidate who studied with the late Steve Seybold
Topic: "Semiochemical Interruption of Host Selection Behavior of the Invasive Walnut Twig Beetle, Pityophthorus juglandis."
Link to Seminar
More information on the fall seminars or schedule is available from Vannette at rlvannette@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Rosenberg's seminar is from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. His is the first in a series of winter quarter seminars sponsored by the department.
“Infecting humans can be a successful career move for ambitious animal pathogens, especially for RNA viruses,” Rosenberg says. “The path from vertebrate to human requires some type of contact and for some pathogens that is provided by mosquitoes, ticks or other blood-feeding arthropods. Nearly 40 percent of the 213 viruses causing human disease are transmitted by arthropods (arboviruses) and all these are zoonoses.”
“New viral pathogens are discovered every year but an analysis of the historical trends showed that the rates of discovery depend on how and where we look,” Rosenberg noted. “ Discovery of arboviruses has lagged since 1965 as dedicated surveillance has weakened in the tropics. Sampling of animal populations can uncover a rich variety of viruses but gives little indication of emergent potential. The most sensitive sentinel for emerging human pathogens is humans.”
Since graduating from Johns Hopkins, he's spent his career – much of it in Bangladesh, Thailand and Kenya –working for the National Institutes of Healthy, U.S. Army, USDA and CDC on various aspects of the transmission of vector-borne diseases, mostly malaria, but also Lyme disease, plague, tularemia. His expertise also includes the influence of climate on disease ecology and vector-borne diseases.
“More recently I've concentrated on designing strategies and programs for identifying the causes of undiagnosed infectious disease, especially in Uganda, Indonesia and the U.S.,” he said. “I do the typical late career things, like editing Emerging Infectious Diseases, chairing the WHO working group on dengue and,” he quipped,” sleeping at committee meetings.”
For the remainder of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology speakers from Jan. 14 through June 3 see this page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs. Plans are to record each seminar for later posting on UCTV.
The speakers' titles and abstracts will be announced later.
The seminar speakers:
Jan. 8
Neil Tsutsui, associate professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley
Title: "Integrating Chemical Ecology and Genetics to Illuminate the Behavior of an Invasive Social Insect"
Host: Brian Johnson, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Jan. 15
Dave Gillespie, research scientist, Pacific Agri-Food Research Center, Agassiz, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada
Title: "Biological Control in the Face of Climate Change"
Host: Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Jan. 22
David Holway, professor, Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, UC San Diego
Title: "Do Positive Species Interactions Promote Invasions? The Role of Ant-Hemipteran Mutualisms in Ant Invasions"
Host: Brian Johnson, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Steve Naranjo, Center director and entomologist of the Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, USDA-ARS (Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Title: "Biological Control and the Transformation of Cotton IPM"
Feb. 5
Kenneth Ross, professor, Department of Entomology, University of Georgia
Title: "The Natural (and Unnatural) History of the Red Imported Fire Ant"
Host: Greg Lanzaro, professor, Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine
Feb. 12
Alana Jacobson, Department of Entomology, North Carolina State University
Title: "Investigating Factors Underlying Thrips-Topovirus Interactions: the Importance of Thrips Genetic Variation in the Transmission of Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus by Thrips tabaci and Its Relevance to Other Tospovirus Vectors."
Host: Diane Ullman, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Academic Programs at the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Feb. 19
Kelly Hamby, doctoral candidate studying with major professor Frank Zalom, professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Title: "Biology and Pest Management of Drosophila suzukii in California Berries and Small Fruits"
Host: Frank Zalom, IPM specialist and professor of entomology
Feb. 26
David Hughes, assistant professor, Entomology, Millenium Science Complex, University Park, Penn.
Title: "Zombie Ants: the Precise Manipulation of Animal Behavior by a Microbe"
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
March 5
Matan Shelomi, doctoral candidate studying with major professor Lynn Kimsey, Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Title: "Digestive Physiology of the Phasmatodea"
March 12
Nazzy Pakpour, postdoctoral scholar, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, UC Davis School of Medicine
Title: "The Effects of Ingested Human Insulin on Malaria Transmission"
