(Editor's Note: See this March 31st seminar on YouTube at https://youtu.be/z85B0NlmizU)

Robert K. D. 'Bob' Peterson, professor of entomology at Montana State University (MSU), Bozeman, and the 2019 president of the Entomological Society of America (ESA), will speak on "Tigers in Yellowstone National Park: Insect Adaptations to Extreme Environments" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's online seminar on Wednesday, March 31.

His seminar, hosted by UC Davis distinguished professor James R. Carey, a fellow of ESA, begins at 4:10 p.m. Access this Google document to attend the Zoom event.

The "tigers" are the tiger beetles that live, feed and breed in the thermal pools.

Peterson, with MSU's Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, leads the research, teaching and outreach program in Agricultural and Biological Risk Assessment, a program centered on comparative risk assessment. His other areas of research include insect ecology, plant-stress ecophysiology, and integrated pest management. Peterson teaches undergraduate and graduate courses, including environmental risk assessment, insect ecology and various special-topics graduate courses. He also directs MSU's professional master's degree program in environmental sciences.

A native of Perry, Iowa, Peterson received his bachelor's degree in entomology from Iowa State University, Ames,  and his master's degree and doctorate in entomology from the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He joined the MSU faculty in 2002 after serving as a research biologist for Dow AgroSciences, Omaha from 1995 to 2001. He has published 123 peer-reviewed journal articles, 15 book chapters, and two books. 

Peterson manages the website, Insects of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, an online photographic celebration of the ecosystem's biodiversity. He describes it as a "celebration of the "incredible diversity and abundance of insects in the area."  Peterson categorized the site into butterflies and moths; beetles; flies; true bugs; stoneflies; mayflies; net-winged insects;  bees, wasps ants and sawflies; grasshoppers, crickets and katydids; and insect relatives. Peterson also hosts a comparable Facebook page, Insects of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

In addition, Peterson is affiliated with two other websites, Insects, Disease and History, devoted to "understanding the impact that insects, especially insect-borne diseases, have had on world history"; and Ag Biosafety,  designed to be a "definitive source of scientific, regulatory and educational materials relevant to crop biotechnology and the current debate on the genetic modification of food."

Cooperative Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger coordinates the spring seminars. For technology problems, contact him at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu. 

Community ecologist Romina Rader of the University of New England's School of Environmental and Rural Science, will speak on "The Journey to Effective Pollination" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's virtual seminar on Wednesday, March 10.

The seminar, hosted by Professor Neal Williams begins at 4:10. Click here to register to attend.

Rader, an associate professor, says she is broadly interested in pollination ecology, landscape ecology and plant–animal interactions in natural and human-modified landscapes. She is currently working on projects that investigate the ways in which plant and animal biodiversity respond to global change and the performance of wild and managed insect pollinators in horticultural crops.

She writes on her website: "I am a community ecologist and my research focuses on plant–animal interactions in natural and human-modified landscapes.  I am interested generally in the ecology of plants and animals in different types of habitats and landscapes and how they respond to differing management practices and global change.  My current projects relate to wild and managed insect pollinators, their efficiency at pollinating horticultural crops and finding ways to improve fruit yield and quality by understanding their life history needs."

Rader holds a  bachelor of environmental science (1998) from the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. She obtained both her master's degree (2005) and doctorate (2011) from James Cook University, Cairns, Australia. Her master's thesis:   "Vertical Distribution, Resource and Space Use in a Tropical Rainforest Small Mammal Community."  For her doctorate:  "The Provision of Pollination Ecosystem Services to Agro-Ecosystems by a Diverse Assemblage of Wild, Unmanaged Insect Taxa." She won a 2017- 2020 Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award. 

Among her most recent journal publications:

• S.A.E.C. Wijesinghe, L.J. Evans, L. Kirkland & R. Rader 2020, ‘A global review of watermelon pollination biology and ecology: The increasing importance of seedless cultivars,' Scientia Horticulturae, vol. 271, pp. 109493,
  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scienta.2020.109493
• Heidi Kolkert, Rhiannon Smith, Romina Rader & Nick Reid 2020, ‘Insectivorous bats foraging in cotton crop interiors is driven by moon illumination and insect abundance, but diversity benefits from woody vegetation cover,' Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment, vol. 302, pp. 107068,
  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167880920302541
• Jamie R. Stavert, Charlie Bailey, Lindsey Kirkland & Romina Rader 2020, ‘Pollen tube growth from multiple pollinator visits more accurately quantifies pollinator performance and plant reproduction,' Scientific Reports, vol. 10, no. 1,
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-73637-5
  
• Liam K. Kendall, Vesna Gagic, Lisa J. Evans, Brian T. Cutting & Jessica Scalzo, Romina Rader. 2020, ‘Self-compatible blueberry cultivars require fewer floral visits to maximize fruit production than a partially self-incompatible cultivar,' Journal of Applied Ecology, 
  https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2664.13751
• Vesna Gagic, Lindsey Kirkland, Liam K. Kendall, Jeremy Jones & Jeffrey Kirkland Romina Rader 2020, ‘Understanding pollinator foraging behaviour and transition rates between flowers is important to maximize seed set in hybrid crops,' Apidologie, 
  https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13592-020-00800-2

Agricultural Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger coordinates the seminars. This is the last of the winter seminars. For technical issues, contact Grettenberger at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu.  

Research scientist and lecturer Brian Weiss of Yale University's Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases, New Haven, Conn., will speak on "Metabolic Complementation Between Members of the Tsetse Fly Holobiont" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar, set for 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 17.

Host is medical entomologist/geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. The Zoom link is here.

"Tsetse flies house an assortment of endosymbiotic bacteria and serve as the prominent vectors of pathogenic African trypanosomes," Weiss says in his abstract. "Tsetse and insect stage trypanosomes are metabolically dependent on the fly's endosymbiotic bacteria in order to maintain their physiological homeostasis. I will describe these interdependencies and
how they can be exploited to decrease tsetse's vector competency."

Weiss received his master's degree from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, in 1997 and his doctorate from the University of Alberta, Canada (2003).

"My research focuses on acquiring a better understanding of the relationship between insect disease vectors and their associated micro-organisms," he writes on his website. "To this end, I currently use the tsetse fly (Glossina morsitans morsitans) as a model system. These insects are the sole vectors of pathogenic African trypanosomes, which are the causative agent of Human African trypanosomiasis. Tsetse flies also harbor indigenous endosymbiotic bacteria that are intimately associated with their host's physiological well-being. I am interested in learning more about (1) the evolution adaptations that permit host tolerance of bacterial endosymbionts, (2) how symbiotic bacteria impact host physiology, with specific emphasis on nutritional supplementation and host immunity, and (3) how to use microbial symbionts to reduce disease vector competence."

Cooperative Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger coordinates the winter seminars. For technical issues, contact him at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu.

Agroecologist Estelí Jiménez-Soto, a postdoctoral scholar/lecturer at UC Santa Cruz, will speak on "A Complex Cup of Joe: Biodiversity, Pest Control and Political Ecologies in Mexican Coffee Agroforests" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology virtual seminar at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb 10.

Host is Extension specialist Ian Grettenberger, who coordinates the department's seminars. Access the Google form link here to attend the seminar.

"Coffee agroforests are great for biodiversity conservation and sustain millions of families and national economies," Jiminez-Soto says in her abstract. "Within these shaded agroecosystems, a complex network of interactions and the availability of resources maintain coffee pests in check, particularly the coffee berry borer, the most devastating insect pest for coffee. Despite the importance of biodiversity conservation and maintenance of shade in these systems, the life of people is often at odds with conservation efforts and management practices, revealing social inequalities and contradictions in plantation-like agricultural systems. In this presentation, I share socio-ecological complexities in the coffee-biodiversity nexus, focusing on ants as biocontrol agents, and the everyday lived experience of farmworkers in Mexican coffee agroforests."

Overall, Jiménez-Soto describes her research as "at the intersection of agroecology and political ecology of agriculture to understand the socioecological entanglements of food production and biodiversity conservation in Mexico and the United States."  Using a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches in ecology, anthropology and political ecology, she studies the mechanisms that drive species interactions, and the role of environmental change and agricultural management on insect community dynamics, ecosystem functions, and the every-day lived experience of farmers and farmworkers in coffee agroecosystems. Currently she is working on a project to assess the barriers and opportunities to the adoption of agroecological practices in strawberry production in California and Florida. 

Jiménez-Soto was quoted in a National Geographic piece, "How This Invasive Snail Could Save Your Coffee from Destruction," published on March 10, 2020.

Writer Forest Ray pointed out that "Coffee leaf rust is the most economically significant coffee pest in the world. Since the 1980s, occasional outbreaks of this fungus have crippled coffee production in the Americas, at times doubling or tripling its price. And the problem has escalated since 2008, as have the massive resources invested in fighting it."

Jiménez-Soto, sharing her expertise on both coffee and biocontrol measures, was quoted as saying: "Classic approaches to pest control have often failed to understand this complexity, causing major natural disasters."  

She holds a master's degree and doctorate in environmental studies from UC Santa Cruz, receiving her master's degree in 2015 and her doctorate in 2018. 

For technical issues involving the seminar, contact Grettenberger at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu. A list of the remaining virtual seminars for the winter quarter (with the Zoom links) are here.