- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Meet Chryseobacterium kimseyorum, named for UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum, and her husband, forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey, both of the Department of Entomology and Nematology.
“We've had a few things named after us but never bacteria--that's a first,” said Lynn Kimsey.
The story begins more than a decade ago when then UC Davis doctoral student Matan Shelomi, now an associate professor of entomology at National Taiwan University, Taiwan, was studying the digestive physiology of the stick and leaf insects, Phasmatodea, for his Ph.D, under the guidance of his major professor, Lynn Kimsey. He isolated and cultured bacteria from the guts and cages of the stick insects. Some of the species seemed new to science, but Shelomi had neither the time nor the resources to prove it then.
He stored the microbes inside the deep freezers of the Phaff Yeast Culture Collection, UC Davis Department of Food Science and Technology.
The years slipped by. So did the memory of isolating the bacteria. Then after becoming a professor himself, his graduate student, Chiao-Jung Han, discovered a new bacteria species inside a beetle. That prompted Shelomi to renew his interest in the microbes from the Bohart Museum.
"Thankfully, I kept all my notes from graduate school," says Shelomi, "so I was able to check and see which strains I had flagged as possibly new species. When I saw one of them was the same genus as the new microbe found in Taiwan, I realized this was an opportunity to describe them both together." So Shelomi emailed Kyria Boundy-Mills, curator of the Phaff Collection, “who had my old specimen revived and shipped across the Pacific.”
The abstract begins: “Two strains of Chryseobacterium identified from different experiments are proposed to represent new species. Strain WLa1L2M3T was isolated from the digestive tract of an Oryctes rhinoceros beetle larva. Strain 09-1422T was isolated from a cage housing the stick insect Eurycantha calcarata. Sequence analysis of the 16S rRNA and rpoB genes found both strains to be similar but not identical to other Chryseobacterium species. Whole-genome sequencing suggested the isolates represent new species, with average nucleotide identity values ranging from 74.6 to 80.5?%.”
Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator of the Bohart Museum, relayed the news to a tour group visiting the insect museum on April 20. “I just used this story today with a tour group,” she told Shelomi. “I mentioned how your student was denied her dog's name. I love how this ties the Bohart and the Phaff Yeast collection together and then California and Taiwan.”
As for the stick insect, “It's pretty aggressive for a walking stick,” Lynn Kimsey said, noting that Andy Engilis, curator of the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology, told her about his work in Papua New Guinea. “These walking sticks would actually chase rodents out of their burrows and take over the burrows to rest in,” she related. “That's pretty tough for a walking stick.”
Meanwhile, the Kimseys are enjoying their new namesake. Lynn Kimsey already has seven other species named for her:
- Mystacagenia kimseyae Cambra & Wasbauer 2020 (spider wasp)
- Oligoaster kimseyae Soliman 2013 (tiphiid wasp)
- Exaerate kimseyae Oliviera 2011 (orchid bee)
- Spilomena kimseyae Antropov 1993 (solitary wasp)
- Manaos kimseyae Smith (argid sawfly)
- Spintharina kimseyae Bohart 1987 (cuckoo wasp)
- Neodryinus kimseyae Olmi 1987 (dryinid wasp)
Bob Kimsey has as at least two species named for him: Acordulacera kimseyi Smith, 2010 (sawfly) and Grandiella kimseyi Summers & Schuster (mite).
Shelomi, a Harvard University graduate who received his doctorate from UC Davis in 2014, served as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany for two years before accepting a faculty position in 2017 at National Taiwan University.
Shelomi returned to UC Davis in 2017 to present a seminar on "Revelations from Phasmatodea Digestive Track Transcriptomics,” to the department.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
And it was all about the beetles: "Beetlemania."
Some 500 visitors browsed the displays at the Bohart Museum of Entomology open house, chatted with scientists, photographed the specimens, engaged in arts and crafts, and then headed over to the petting zoo to introduce themselves to the Madagascar hissing cockroaches and stick insects.
The event took place from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Bohart Museum's headquarters in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. Bohart personnel greeted the guests: Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum; Tabatha Yang, education and outreach coordinator; Brennen Dyer, collections manager; Brittany Kohler, research associate; Jeff Smith, curator of the Lepidoptera collection; and Greg Kareofelas, Lepidoptera host assistant.
- Beetles from Belize: Professor Fran Keller of Folsom Lake College, a Bohart Museum scientist, and her assistant, Iris Bright, a graduate student in the Jason Bond lab.
- Carabid beetles: Kipling "Kip" Will, associate professor with the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management
- Burying beetles: Tracie Hayes, a doctoral candidate and burying beetle researcher in the laboratory of Professor Louie Yang, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. (She presented a video she created, "A Clearance of Death on Behalf of Life" at https://youtu.be/cGLOE7SrbiU.)
- Bark beetles: Curtis Ewing, a senior environmental scientist with Cal Fire's Forest Entomology and Pathology
- Children's tree-related activities: Jonelle Mason, a UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) employee and coordinator of Project Learning Tree (PLT) California, an initiative of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative,
- Tree cores and boring tools: UC Davis graduate student Jennifer Cribbs of the Graduate Program of Environmental Policy and Management
- Diabolical ironclad beetles: Brittany Kohler, Bohart research associate
- Family arts and crafts: Allen Chew, Sol Wantz and Kat Taylor, all UC Davis undergraduate students
- Petting zoo: Kaitai Liu, undergraduate student in the Jason Bond lab; Veronica Casey, graduate student in Shahid Siddique lab; and Grace Horne, graduate student in Emily Meineke lab
The Bohart Museum, dedicated to "understanding, documenting and communicating terrestrial arthropod diversity," was founded in 1946 and named for UC Davis professor and noted entomologist Richard Bohart. It houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, plus a live "petting zoo," featuring Madagascar hissing cockroaches, walking sticks and tarantulas; and a year-around gift shop, stocked with insect-themed books, posters, jewelry, t-shirts, hoodies and more. The museum is open to the public from 8 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., Mondays through Fridays.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
A new display, designed and coordinated by Bohart associate and UC Davis biological sciences graduate Emma Cluff, showcases stick insects and insect digestion. A research grant donated by Brian Johnson, associate professor of entomology, funded the project.
“I have always thought stick insects were pretty amazing,” said Cluff, who worked on the project over a six-month period. “I loved making the display visually catching as well as informative. I spent a lot of time reading papers and communicating with graduate students who worked with Brian Johnson, and I enjoyed figuring out how to translate their science into terms that the public would find accessible.” The Johnson lab studies the genetics, behavior, evolution, and health of honey bees and currently focuses on the evolution and genetic basis of social behavior using comparative and functional genomics.
Stick insects, most abundant in the tropics and subtropics, belong to the order Phasmatodea and are found on all continents except Antarctica. They derive their name from the ancient Greek “Phasma,” meaning an apparition or phantom, referring to their resemblance to sticks or leaves.
The finished project, mounted on a wall, includes a wood sculpture of a stick insect by Leo Huitt of Woodland, and illustrations by UC Davis entomology student Karissa Merritt, who drew the anterior midgut, Malpighian tubules, crop and hindgut. The display also includes stick insect facts, with lift off tabs.
“People seem surprised that we know so much about stick insect digestion,” Cluff commented. “Visitors have also commented on how incredible it is that a fairly complex digestive system can fit in such a slender organism.”
In her display, Cluff explains cellulose and why it is difficult to digest. She defines cellulose as “a molecule made of linked sugars. It is found in plants and forms plant cell walls. This moleculre provides the rigid structure in plants, like stems and wood (this means that wood is made mostly of sugar!)”
Why is it difficult to digest? “Cellulose has a very stable structure and forms strong fibrous strands. Because of this, animals need enzymes (proteins which enable chemical reactions) to break the cellulose apart into sugars.”
This was her first experience designing an exhibit. “It was a really wonderful experience,” she said.
“Emma is very talented and I would really like to see her continue doing science outreach,” said Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum and professor of entomology at UC Davis.
Cluff, from Turlock, plans to attend graduate school and become a marine biologist. “I love marine bio and I am also passionate about education so I would like to somehow combine the two. I always loved marine science as a kid, and taking a research course at Bodega Bay re-inspired me. I think marine science is so important for the future of our planet, and I also fell in love with research and the creativity of it.”
The Bohart Museum is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building on Crocker Lane. It is the home of nearly eight million insect specimens, plus a live “petting zoo” that includes stick insects, Madagascar hissing cockroaches, tarantulas and praying mantids; and a year-around gift shop.
Richard “Doc” Bohart (1913-2007), former professor and chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology (now the Department of Entomology and Nematology), founded the insect museum in 1946.
The Bohart Museum is open to the general public Mondays through Thursdays, from 9 a.m. to noon and from 1 to 5 p.m., plus occasional, weekend open houses​. Admission is free. The next weekend open house is from 1 to 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 18 and centers around urban entomology..
Further information is available on the Bohart Museum website at http://bohart.ucdavis.edu/ or contact (530) 753-0493 or bmuseum@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His abstract:
Shelomi received his bachelor's degree in organismic and evolutionary biology from Harvard University in 2009, and immediately after started his Ph.D program at UC Davis under Lynn Kimsey of the Bohart Museum.
His work in Davis is funded by the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship program. He has also twice won the National Science Foundation's East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes fellowship: once to work in the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan, and once to work in Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan.
Shelomi served as a teaching assistant for Bob Kimsey's forensic entomology class, but also co-taught his own freshman seminar with Lynn Kimsey on "Evolution, Creationism, and Intelligent Design." He has given guest lectures for Entomology 10 "Natural History of Insects"; Entomology 100 "Introduction to Entomology"; and Entomology 102 "Insect Physiology."
He has presented at numerous meetings of the Entomological Society of America (ESA) and the Pacific Branch of the Entomological Society of America (PBESA) and also organized or co-organized four symposia at those meetings. He participates in the ESA's Linnaean Games and Student Debate teams. For his work with ESA and outside it, he won a John Henry Comstock Award in 2013. In addition, he has given a workshop at the 2012 International Conference on Science in Society, and received first place for his talk this past summer at the International Congress of Orthopterology in Kunming, China.
Shelomi's research has been spotlighted in the Sacramento Bee, California Aggie, DavisPatch, plus blogs and vlogs like LiveScience, PHD TV, and Breaking Bio. He also answers entomology and biology questions on Quora.com, where he has been a top writer for two consecutive years. His Quora answers have been posted to HuffPost and Slate. He won a "Shorty" social media award for his post "If you injure a bug, should you kill it or let it live?"
His publications from graduate school include:
M. Shelomi, W.C. Jasper, J. Atallah, L.S. Kimsey, B.R. Johnson. “How Sticks Eat Leaves: Re-evaluating Invertebrate Herbivory.” Manuscript Submitted for Publication.
M. Shelomi, H. Watanabe, G. Arakawa. (2014) “Endogenous Cellulase Enzymes in the Stick Insect (Phasmatodea) Gut.” Journal of Insect Physiology. 60: 25-30. doi: 10.1016/j.jinsphys.2013.10.007
M. Shelomi, L.S. Kimsey. (2013) “Vital Staining of the Stick Insect Digestive System Identifies Appendices of the Midgut as Novel System of Excretion.” Journal of Morphology. ePub before print. doi: 10.1002/jmor.20243
M. Shelomi. (2013) “Ants and the Humans Who Love Them in Bernard Werber's Les Fourmis Trilogy.” American Entomologist. 59(4): 208-213.
M. Shelomi, W-S Lo, L.S. Kimsey, C-H Kuo. (2013) “Analysis of the Gut Microbiota of Walking Sticks (Phasmatodea).” BMC Research Notes. 6: 368. doi: 10.1186/1756-0500-6-368. PMID: 24025149
M. Shelomi. (2013) “Mad Scientist: The Unique Case of a Published Delusion” Science and Engineering Ethics. 19(2): 381-388. doi: 10.1007/s11948-011-9339-2. PMID: 22173734
M. Shelomi. (2013) “Evidence of Photo Manipulation in a Delusional Parasitosis Paper.” Journal of Parasitology. 99(3): 583-585. doi: 10.1645/12-12.1 PMID: 23198757
M. Shelomi. (2012) “Where are we now? Bergmann's Rule sensu lato in Insects.” American Naturalist. 180(4), 511-519. PMID: 22976013
M. Shelomi, Andrew Richards, Ivana Li, Yukinari Okido. (2012) “A Phylogeny and Evolutionary History of the Pokémon.” Annals of Improbable Research, 18(4): 15-17.
M. Shelomi, L. Matern, D. Harris, J. Dinsdall, R. Kimsey. (2012) “DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) Induced Delay of Blowfly Landing and Oviposition Rates on Treated Pig Carrion (Sus scrofa L.).” Journal of Forensic Science. 57(6): 1507-1511. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2012.
M. Shelomi. (2011) “Phasmid Eggs Do Not Survive Digestion by Quails and Chickens” Journal of Orthoptera Research. 20(2): 159-162. PMID: 22515377
M. Shelomi. (2012) “Book Review: Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo.” Pan-Pacific Entomologist. 87(4): 300-301.M. Shelomi. (2011) “Phasmid Eggs Do Not Survive Digestion by Quails and Chickens” Journal of Orthoptera Research. 20(2): 159-162. PMID: 22515377