- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Can Genetically Modified Mosquitoes End Disease?" spotlights the work of Gregory Lanzaro, director of the UC Davis Vector Genetics Laboratory, and a professor in the School of Veterinary Medicine's Department of Pathology, Microbiology and Immunology, and his "blood brother," longtime fellow mosquito researcher Anthony "Anton" Cornel, a member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (ENT) faculty, director of the UC Mosquito Control Research Laboratory, and researcher in the Vector Genetics Laboratory.
The New York Times' feature, written by global health reporter Stephanie Nolen, appears in the Sept. 29 edition.
An earlier news story announcing the $10.2 million grant to the UC Davis Vector Genetics Laboratory, from Open Philanthropy, was posted Jan. 25, 2022 on the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology website. In that story, Lanzaro, former ENT faculty member and former director of the now-folded UC Mosquito Research Program, explained that the research involves "the release of Anopheles mosquitoes engineered to prevent transmission of the malaria parasite Plasmodium falciparum on the islands. We are working in collaboration with the UC Irvine Malaria Initiative, a research consortium including scientists from UC Irvine, San Diego and Berkeley as well as Johns Hopkins University. We are working toward the application of advanced genetic tools aimed at the mosquito vector. It is our belief that this approach, used in conjunction with early malaria treatment and detection, can provide a cost effective, sustainable, and environmentally responsible program to ultimately eliminate malaria from Africa.”
"The malaria situation in São Tomé and Príncipe, an African island nation with a population of 200,000, epitomizes the current challenge in the global struggle against the disease," Nolen wrote. "The country is among the world's least developed, and it has depended on foreign aid to fight malaria. Various campaigns over the past 50 years drove cases down, only to have them resurge worse than ever when the benefactor moved on."
Lanzaro told Nolen that "we've been working on this for 30 years, and from the beginning we said, It has to work, but it also has to be inexpensive, and it has to be sustainable. And we believe we have it...We have got to get going. We can't just keep saying 10 more years, 10 more years. Six million people have died while we've been fiddling around.”
Cornel agrees. In the initial UC Davis news story, he commented: "The fight to reduce and possibly eliminate malaria continues and becomes especially challenging as efforts to reduce malaria morbidity have plateaued since 2015. Therefore, we must seriously consider new tools. One such tool is genetically modifying the major mosquito vector in the Afrotropics so that it cannot transmit malaria. The project aims to use genetically modified mosquito strategy to reduce and eliminate malaria from the Islands of São Tomé and Príncipe, as proof of concept, before using this technology on larger scales on mainland Africa."
The New York Times' story pointed out that "genetic modification is a controversial endeavor. Governments are hesitant, and few in Africa have laws to regulate the use of the technology. Its risks lie in the unknowns: Could the modified mosquito evolve in some way that has harmful effects on the rest of the ecosystem? Could it prompt a dangerous mutation in the malaria parasite, which will find a new way to spread to survive?"
"These fears," Nolen wrote, "are why the University of California team chose São Tomé and Príncipe for its experiment: The island nation is isolated and has limited international traffic. The team has also built in a plan to wipe out the population of its modified mosquitoes if there is a need to end the experiment for any reason."
See the entire news story, Can Genetically Modified Mosquitoes End Disease?
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Attardo will discuss “The Mating Biology of Tsetse Flies--Insights into the Morphological, Biochemical, and Molecular Responses to Mating Stimuli in a Viviparous Disease Vector.”
"Research into the reproductive behavior of tsetse flies offers key insights into controlling diseases like African sleeping sickness," he writes in his abstract. "Unique among insects, these flies give birth to live offspring. During mating, males transfer a mix of sperm and other vital substances to the females. This study employs state-of-the-art techniques, including 3D scanning and genetic analysis, to monitor changes in the female fly's reproductive system over a 72-hour period post-mating. Findings indicate that mating sets off a chain of intricate changes in the female, affecting everything from biochemistry to gene activity. These changes prepare her for pregnancy and childbirth. The study opens up new avenues for understanding tsetse fly biology and offers potential strategies for disease control."
The seminar also will be on Zoom. The link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882 849672
The Attardo lab monitors the dynamics of vector insects at the levels of physiology, population genetics and environmental interactions.
Attardo is a global expert on vectorborne diseases, including his groundbreaking work on tsetse flies. He researches the invasive yellow mosquito, Aedes aegypti, which can carry such diseases as dengue, chikungunya, Zika and yellow fever. His work involves predicting insecticide resistance and tracking movements of genetically independent populations of aegypti throughout the state.
Attardo, who holds a doctorate in genetics from Michigan State University, where he researched the molecular biology of mosquito reproduction, joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology in 2017 from the Yale School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases.
He received the 2022 Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology Award from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America, which encompasses 11 Western states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico, and U.S. territories.
For any technical issues regarding Zoom, contact seminar coordinator Brian Johnson at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu.
Resources:
- Tsetse Fly Research (article featuring Geoffrey Attardo, Feb. 3, 2021, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- A Tsetse Fly Births One Enormous Milk-Fed Baby, Deep Look, featurng the work of Geoffrey Attardo
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
CaraDonna, the first speaker in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's fall seminar series, will discuss "Understanding the Dynamics of Plant-Animal Interactions in a Changing World," at 4:10 p.m., Monday, Oct. 2 in 122 Briggs Hall. The seminar also will be on Zoom. The link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882 849672
Host is pollination ecologist Neal Williams, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, who will introduce CaraDonna.
"Plant-pollinator interactions are ubiquitous and play an important role in ecosystem functioning across the globe," CaraDonna says in his abstract. "Critically, plants, pollinators, and their interactions face numerous threats in our changing world, including those related to climate change. However, our understanding of the consequences of these threats to plant-pollinator interactions has been hampered because we lack knowledge of the basic ecology of many of these organisms, and how their ecology responds to changing abiotic and biotic conditions. We will investigate these issues in this seminar."
CaraDonna has served as associate editor of the Journal of Animal Ecology since January 2021. "I'm based at the Chicago Botanic Garden, the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, and also Northwestern University. The Chicago Botanic Garden is where my lab is based; I teach at Northwestern; and do my field research at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory." (See interview on Journal of Animal Ecology website and information on the Caradonna Lab website.)
CaraDonna, who grew up in the Boston area, holds a bachelor's degree in botany from Humboldt State University (2010) and a doctorate in ecology and evolutionary biology from the University of Arizona (2016). He accepted a position as GROW Research Fellow for the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate, Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen in 2015. GROW is the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Opportunities Worldwide.
A research scientist at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory since May of 2011, CaraDonna joined the Chicago Botanic Garden in 2016. On his LinkedIn page, he says: "My research aims to understand the structure and function of ecological communities and species interactions. In doing so, I explore the interplay among ecological community context, environmental variation, and biological timing (phenology). I ask how these factors influence plant and animal populations, their interactions, and community-level patterns from a basic ecological perspective and under rapid climate change scenarios."
Seminar coordinator is Brian Johnson, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. For Zoom technical issues, he may be reached at brnjohnson@ucdavis.edu. The list of seminars is posted here.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Professor Bond is serving a 2023-2025 term with president Linda Rayor of Cornell University's Department of Entomology, and then will assume the presidency. Bond specializes in the evolutionary diversification of terrestrial arthropods, specifically spiders, millipedes, and tenebrionid beetles. Rayor, a behavioral ecologist, focuses her research on the evolution of sociality in spiders.
AAS has played a huge role in Bond's career, with lifelong friends, colleagues, and collaborators who extend back nearly 30 years. "I consider it an honor to serve as AAS president."
AAS, founded in 1972, aims “to further the study of arachnids, foster closer cooperation and understanding between amateur and professional arachnologists, and to publish the Journal of Arachnology, according to its website. The journal is published three times a year.
A member of AAS since 1993, Bond co-hosted the 2022 AAS meeting at UC Davis, which included an outreach event, “Eight-Legged Encounters,” at the Bohart Museum of Entomology.
Bond joined the UC Davis faculty in 2018 after a seven-year academic career at Auburn University, Ala. He served as professor of biology, director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History (2011-2105); chair of the Department of Biological Sciences from January 2016 to July 2018; and as curator of arachnids and myriapods (centipedes, millipedes, and related animals) from August 2011 to July 2018.
Bond also is the co-editor-in-chief of the journal Insect Systematics and Diversity, published by the Entomological Society of America. He and co-editor Hojun Song of Texas A&M began serving their four-year terms in 2022.
A veteran of the U.S. Army, Bond served as a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crew chief upon graduation from high school.
Jason received his bachelor's degree in biological sciences, cum laude, in 1993 from Western Carolina University, Cullowhee, and his master's degree in biology in 1995 from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg. He earned his doctorate in evolutionary systematics and genetics in 1999 from Virginia Tech.
Research in his lab currently focuses on the California trapdoor spider fauna, specifically species delimitation, phylogeography, systematics and taxonomy; Bond has described many new spider taxa to include new families, genera, and more than 50 species.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The podcast, "The Buzz on Native Bees in Your Neighborhood," is online.
"When I say 'bees,' you probably think of a neat stack of white hive boxes and the jars of honey on the store shelves, right?" Flatow began. "But there's a lot more to bees than that. Because around the world, there are over 20,000 known bee species, and 4,000 of them are native to the U.S. And while these native bees that live in the wild play a key role in pollinating our plants, they don't get a ton of recognition or support like the ones that live in a box."
Professor Williams discussed a number of bee species, including bumble bees, carpenter bees, squash bees, mining bees ("bees that burrow into the ground or soil") and mason bees and leafcutter bees.
Mason bees, Williams said, build their nests "partly out of mud, which then dries. And the leafcutter bees are chewing pieces of leaves and making their nests out of those leaf pieces, either as whole chunks of leaves or as chewed up bits of leaves. We have a series of other small to large bees that nest on the ground or nest above ground that fall into other families. But probably those are the most familiar for most people."
Williams called attention to research led by his then graduate student, and now postdoctoral fellow, Maureen Page, who compared "the quality of honey bees at pollinating flowers versus the quality of other bees. And in general, we find that honey bees are sort of equal or slightly less good than many other bees. And the old adage, the jack of all trades is the master of none--the honey bee is really that jack of all trades. It's very wide in the number of flowers that it will visit, but doesn't tend to be particularly effective on any one flower visit relative to some of the other bees we have."
The alfalfa leafcutter bee "is a really effective pollinator relative to the honeybees at pollinating alfalfa," he told Flatow.
"So your bumble bee is sort of the lab animal, then," Flatow commented. "It's not a white mouse. It's a bumble bee."
Williams agreed. "It's become a pretty useful organism for studying things in the lab. I should say the other group that we work a lot with are mason bees and leafcutter bees. And because of the way they nest, they have been really useful for studying other sorts of questions. So there are a couple of groups that we work well with."
Williams also touched on the threats faced by native bees. In addition to pesticides (insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides), "they're threatened by the loss of reliable foraging floral resources," Williams said. "They are threatened by a set of emerging diseases. And this is, again, where the honey bee gets a lot of attention, right? This colony collapse may be resulting from certain viruses, but wild bees, native bees, also have some substantial problems with certain viruses and also other kinds of pathogens."
"And then a really big one is climate change. So we have to fully recognize that changes in rainfall and also changes in temperature patterns seem to be stressing bees in different parts of the U.S., for sure."
Flatow, whose colleagues say has "revived many an office plant at death's door," asked: "Can I plant a little patch of wild flowers in a pot or in the yard and really help out?"
"This is also one of these questions that's a complex one, but we'll try not to make it too complex," Williams said. "I mean, in general, planting flowers for bees is a useful thing. The one thing we'd want to be careful about if we were planting flowers in the yard is that we were also being careful about the use of some of these chemical pesticides. But I think also recognizing the importance of natural areas and broader stewardship of habitat for bees across the landscape is really important. And this tricky one with climate change, too--what are we going to do? We don't solve climate change with the sorts of things that we would do– small-scale actions--to help bees."
"But we can do some things probably--providing shady spots, where they have what we call microclimates that are maybe protecting them from times where there are heat waves that are particularly problematic--things like that that could be useful."
Williams, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology faculty in 2009, was named a Chancellor's Fellow in 2015, a five-year program supporting his research, teaching and public service. He was named a a Highly Cited Researcher by Clarivate Analytics in 2018, and a Fellow of the California Academy of Sciences in 2021.
A native of Madison, Wisc., he received his doctorate in ecology and evolution from Stony Brook University, New York in 1999.
Resources:
- Neal Williams, biography, Wikipedia
- Neal Williams lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
- Evidence of exploitative competition between honey bees and native bees in two California landscapes by Maureen Page and Neal Williams, June 2023, Journal of Animal Ecology
- Honey bee introductions displace native bees and decrease pollination of a native wildflower by Maureen Page and Neal Williams, December 2022, Journal of Ecology
- A meta-analysis of single visit pollination effectiveness comparing honey bees and other floral visitors by Maureen Page, Charlie Nicholson, Ross Brennan and Neal Williams, October 2021, American Journal of Botany