- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Mohammad-Amir Aghaee, graduate student in the Larry Godfrey lab in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, won the first-place President's Prize in his category for his 10-minute talk on a rice water weevil at the Entomological Society of America's 61st annual meeting, being held Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas.
Graduate student Rosanna Kwok of the Joanna Chiu lab and the Frank Zalom lab received a second place award in the President's Prize competition for her 10-minute talk on the spotted wing drosophila.
Aghaee's topic was "Exploring the Mechanisms of Winter Flooding as a Cultural Control Against Rice Water Weevil, Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus."
His abstract: "Rice water weevils (Lissorhoptrus oryzophilus Kuschel) are the primary insect pest in California rice agriculture. They present a challenge for IPM because of their soil dwelling larvae, which prevents the effective use of parasitoids, nematodes and predators. However a possible cultural control method may present a sustainable solution if its mechanism can be explained. Data from the field experiments in the 1990s showed that winter flooding of rice fields to break down post harvest rice straw would result in reduced larval populations in the spring. Studies from the last two years have been exploring the mechanisms behind this decline. Similar results were shown in a greenhouse study in the summer of 2013, with reduced larval counts in treatments with a winter flood compared to treatments without the flood. As part of this study we also examined the addition of rice straw, which nullified the effects of the winter flood. The evidence suggests that use of winter flooding in California will have benefits for growers against rice water weevil, but the mechanism behind it has yet to be determined."
Kwok, who works closely with integrated pest management specialist/professor Zalom; doctoral candidate Kelly Hamby of the Zalom lab; and molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu, assistant professor in the Department of Entomology and Nematology, discussed "Integrating Circadian Activity and Gene Expression Profiles to Predict Chronotoxicity of Drosophila suzukii Response to Insecticides."
Her abstract:
Native to Southeast Asia, Drosophila suzukii is a recent invader that infests ripe and ripening fruit, leading to significant crop losses. Since current D. suzukii management strategies rely on insecticide usage, and insecticide detoxification gene expression is under circadian regulation in the closely related Drosophila melanogaster, we set out to determine if integrative analysis of daily activity patterns and detoxification gene expression can predict chronotoxicity of D. suzukii to insecticides. Locomotor assays, detoxification gene expression analysis, and acute insecticide contact bioassays were performed under conditions that approximate a typical summer day in Watsonville, California, where D. suzukii was first detected in North America. Summer is also the cropping season, when most insecticide applications occur. We observed that D. suzukii assumed a bimodal activity pattern, with maximum activity occurring at dawn and dusk. Five of the six genes tested exhibited rhythmic expression over a circadian day, with the majority showing peak expression at dawn (ZT0, 6am). We observed significant differences in the chronotoxicity of D. suzukii towards malathion, with highest susceptibility at ZT0 (6am), corresponding to peak expression of cytochrome P450s that may be involved in bioactivation of malathion. High activity levels were not found to consistently correlate with high insecticide susceptibility as initially hypothesized. Chronobiology and chronotoxicity of D. suzukii provide valuable insights for monitoring and control efforts, because insect activity as well as insecticide timing and efficacy are crucial considerations for pest management. However, field research is necessary for extrapolation to agricultural settings.
The first-place President's Prize consists of a one-year free membership in ESA, a $175 cash prize, and a certificate. The second-place winner receives a certificate and a $50 cash prize.
Frank Zalom is the incoming president of the 6500-member ESA and will assume his new duties today (Nov. 13). He will president over the ESA's 62nd annual meeting, to be held next year in Portland, Ore.
Related Link:
UC Davis Pioneering Research on Spotted-Wing Drosophila May Lead to Fewer Insecticide Applications
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Agrawal, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell with a joint appointment in the Department of Entomology, will deliver the Founders’ Memorial Award lecture at the ESA’s 61st annual meeting set Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas.
The recipient of this annual award addresses the conferees to honor the memory and career of an outstanding entomologist. Agrawal has selected Dame Miriam Rothschild (1908-2005), best known for her work with mimicry, and a pioneer in the area of insect chemical ecology.
Agrawal researches plant-insect interactions, including aspects of herbivory, community ecology, phenotypic plasticity, chemical ecology and coevolution. Research projects include work on local biodiversity, ecology of invasive plants, the biology of Monarch butterflies, and the evolution of plant defense strategies.
From the ESA site:
"Dr. Agrawal’s research accomplishments cover the key areas of arthropod community genetics, real-time evolution of plant defense against insects, phylogenetic ecology, plant neighborhood-insect interactions, and insect colonization and induced defense. Over the course of his career to date, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in high-profile journals such as PNAS, Science, and Nature, and he has edited two key books on insect ecology."
"In the relatively new area of arthropod community genetics, he has addressed natural selection on milkweed defensive traits and how plant genetic variation in these traits influences insect community structure and coexistence. In the area of real time evolution of plant defenses against insects, he has shown that the suppression of insect damage causes the evolution of decreased plant resistance and increased competitive ability. His work in the area of phylogenetic ecology uses a comparative biology approach to address problems ranging from the controls on the success of invasive species to phylogenetic signatures of coevolution. And in the area of plant neighborhood-insect interactions, his ongoing research seeks to partition the relative importance of direct, associational, and trait-mediated effects of competing plants on milkweed and its insect fauna."
Rothschild, a British natural scientist and a leading authority on fleas. authored a book on parasitism, Fleas, Flukes and Cuckoos. Her father was entomologist Charles Rothschild, whose collection of fleas is in the Rothschild Collection at the British Museum.
"She is best known for her work with mimicry, and she conducted classic studies on the role of carotenoids in insect mimicry," according to information posted on the ESA website. "In addition to her work cataloging the famous Rothschild flea collection, Dame Rothschild was also a pioneer in the area of insect chemical ecology. Her work in particular on mimicry and sequestration of toxic compounds by insects was outstanding. Nature conservation was extremely important to her, and she lobbied strongly in favor of nature reserves."
Agrawal was at UC Davis in January of 2012 to deliver a seminar on "Evolutionary Ecology of Plant Defenses." His abstract: "In order to address coevolutionary interactions between milkweeds and their root feeding four-eyed beetles, I will present data on reciprocity, fitness tradeoffs, specialization and the genetics of adaptation. In addition to wonderful natural history, this work sheds light on long-standing theory about how antagonistic interactions proceed in ecological and evolutionary time."
Nearly 3,000 entomologists are expected to attend Entomology 2013. ESA, which has some 6500 members, is the world's largest organization serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. It was founded in 1889.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Bonning is one of only 10 Fellows elected this year in the 6500-member ESA “for outstanding contributions to entomology in one or more of the following: research, teaching, extension, or administration.”
The 10 will be honored at ESA’s annual meeting set Nov. 10-13 in Austin, Texas. Other 2013 Fellows with UC connections are Jocelyn Millar, entomology professor at UC Riverside, and Jeffery G. Scott of Cornell University, who received his doctorate in entomology and toxicology from UC Riverside.
“Bryony is a star in our department,” said distinguished professor Bruce Hammock of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. Hammock was elected an ESA Fellow in 2010.
“Bryony and I worked together at the NERC (Natural Environment Research Council) Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology at Oxford and she came back to UC Davis with me as a postdoc,” Hammock said.
“Bryony did amazing work on recombinant baculovirus insecticides working with Susumu Maeda, Sean Duffy and myself,” Hammock said. “She and Kelli Hoover, now a professor at Pennsylvania State University, were partners in my lab.”
Another UC Davis connection: Bonning married Jeff Beetham, a Ph.D. student in the Hammock lab and now a professor at Iowa State University’s School of Veterinary Medicine.
Bonning joined the faculty of ISU in 1994. She oversees fundamental and applied research on insect physiology and insect pathology with the goal of developing novel, environmentally benign alternatives to chemical insecticides for insect pest management. Her research has included the study of insect hormones and enzymes and insecticidal toxins derived from Bacillus thuringiensis, insect small RNA, the genetic optimization of insect viruses for pest management, insect virus discovery, and the use of viral proteins for development of insect resistant transgenic plants. Recent research has included modification of Bt toxins to target hemipteran pests which typically have low susceptibility to native Bt toxins, and the use of the coat protein of an aphid-vectored plant virus for delivery of insect specific neurotoxins to their target site within the aphid hemocoel.
Bonning is the founding director of the Center for Arthropod Management Technologies (CAMTech), a research center supported by the National Science Foundation, industry, and universities. CAMTech engages scientists at ISU and its sister institution, the University of Kentucky, in collaborative efforts with the world’s largest agricultural and insect pest control companies to better align research conducted within academe with the need of industry for practical pest management solutions. Bonning met the co-director at the University of Kentucky site, Dr. S. Reddy Palli, through a collaborative project while at Davis.
Bonning has mentored more than 30 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers and teaches insect pathology and molecular entomology at the graduate level. Over the course of her career, she has authored or co-authored more than 110 scientific papers, reviews, and book chapters, and holds five patents. Her work has been funded by diverse research agencies, including the National Science Foundation and USDA. She has served as associate editor for the Journal of Invertebrate Pathology, as council trustee and chair of the Virus Division and program chair for the Society for Invertebrate Pathology, and on the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, Baculovirus Study Group and Dicistrovirus and Iflavirus Study Group. Her accomplishments were recognized by the Iowa Technology Association through the Iowa Women of Innovation Award for Research Innovation and Leadership. She is a fellow of American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Bonning received her bachelor's degree in zoology from the University of Durham, UK, in 1985, with specialization in entomology and neurobiology, and her doctorate in applied entomology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London, UK in 1989.
While enrolled in college in the UK, she did field work on the detection and monitoring of insecticide resistance mechanisms in mosquitoes with the Anti-Malaria Campaign in Colombo, Sri Lanka; she was funded by the Overseas Development Administration. Bonning also did regional monitoring and field trials for biological or chemical control of arthropod and nematode pests in Derbyshire, UK, with the Department of Entomology, Ministry of Agriculture, Fishers and Food,Agricultural Development and Advisory Service.
After receiving her doctorate from the University of London, Bonning worked from 1989 to 1990 as a higher scientific officer with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Institute of Virology and Environmental Microbiology, Oxford, in Robert Possee’s lab, where she met Hammock during his sabbatical. She then moved to California to join the Hammock lab as a postdoctoral researcher.
On her last visit to UC Davis, on April 18, 2012, Bonning delivered an entomology seminar on "Novel Toxin Delivery Strategies for Management of Pestiferous Aphids.”
At the time Hammock said. "She is one of our most productive alumni in continuing her work on insect developmental biology and green pesticides based on insect viruses and expanded this dramatically into exciting new areas. She is advancing fundamental virology while applying this knowledge in production agriculture in both insect control and in blocking transmission of plant diseases by insects. She clearly is the leader in insect control with recombinant viruses.”
ICE 2016 is expected to be the largest gathering of scientists and experts in the history of the entomological sciences, with an expected attendance of more than 6,000 delegates, Brown said. The Congress will be co-located with ESA's 64th annual meeting, along with other scientific society meetings. The latest global research on insect science will be presented under the theme, "Entomology without Borders.”
"ICE 2016 will provide a dynamic forum for the exchange of the latest science, research and innovations among entomologists all around the world,” Brown said. “Research shared will cover every aspect of the discipline and will bring thousands of experts together from every corner of the globe, many in person in Orlando and others remotely through the latest technologies. Students and early career scientists will have an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to present their research in front of a global audience, to compete in global competitions, and will make important connections to last a lifetime."
"This event, supported by other international initiatives ESA has in the works, will help us significantly broaden the awareness of the science and society around the world, help us build more collaborative partnerships, and aid us in providing access for our members and others around the globe to the latest research and science," he said.
The ICE 2016 Organizing Committee will be co-chaired by Walter Leal, professor of entomology at UC Davis, and Alvin M. Simmons, a research entomologist with the U.S. Vegetable Laboratory of the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, Charleston, S.C.
The ESA is the largest organization in the world, serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Founded in 1889, ESA has more than 6,400 members affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government.
For more information on ICE 2016, contact Rosina Romano, ESA director of meetings, at rromano@entsoc.org or call (301) 731-4535 x3010. --Richard Levine, ESA.
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
That's what moderator Michael Klein, The Ohio State University, said when he introduced Harry K. Kaya, emeritus professor of entomology and nematology, at a special seminar in his honor at the 2011 Entomological Society of America meeting.
The seminar, "Entomopathogenic Nematodes: Their Biology, Ecology, and Application. A Tribute to the Dynamic Career of Harry K. Kaya," took place Nov. 15 at the ESA's 59th annual meeting, held in the Reno/Sparks Convention Center.
Organizing the event were Lynn LeBeck, executive director, Association of Natural Bio-Control Producers (ANBP), Clovis; Ed Lewis, professor of entomology and nematology and acting chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology; and David Shapiro-Ilan, research entomologist, USDA's Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS).
Michael Klein, adjunct associate professor at The Ohio State University, moderated the seminar. Kaya worked on international research projects with Klein, who recently retired from the Horticultural Insects Research Laboratory, part of the USDA/ARS Application Technology Research Unit, Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center in Wooster, Ohio
LeBeck echoed the feelings of the attendees when she praised Kaya as a top-notch researcher and as "a warm human being." She recalled the "many years of fun times and great research experiences with him."
LeBeck was one of dozens of people paying tribute to him and/or presenting a lecture at the special seminar.
Internationally recognized for his contributions to insect pathology and insect nematology, Kaya specialized in the utilizations of nematodes for biological control of insect pests; interaction between nematodes and other biological control agents; and general insect pathology (protozoan, viral and fungal diseases of insects).
One of the founders of the journal Biological Control, Kaya is a Fellow of the Entomological Society of America (2007) and the co-editor of the first and second editions of Field Manual of Techniques in Invertebrate Pathology, Application and Evaluation of Pathogens for Control of Insects and other Invertebrate Pests.
Scientists billed on the tribute program were:
- Parwinder Grewal and Ruisheng An, The Ohio State University, "Cooperative Endurance and Pathogenesis: a Story of the Nematode and Bacteria Partnership"
- Don Strong, UC Davis"Top Down Islands in a Bottom-Up Foodweb Sea: Native EPNs and Rootfeeders of Lupine"
- Mary Barbercheck, Pennsylvania State University, "Hunter and Hunted: Entomopathogenic Nematodes in the Soil Food Web"
- Larry W. Duncan, University of Florida, "Ecology and Conservation of Entomopathogenic Nematodes in Florida Citrus Groves"
- Davis Shapiro-Ilan, USDA-ARS and Edwin Lewis, UC Davis, "Putting the Worms to Work: Application Technology for Entomopathogenic Nematodes"
- James F. Campbell, USDA-ARS, Edwin Lewis of UC Davis and David Shapiro-Ilan, USDA-ARS, "Entomopathogenic Nematode Infection Behavior: from Mechanism to Adaptive Value"
- Ho Yul Choo, Southern Forest Research Center, "Practical Use of Entomopathogenic Nematodes against Greenhouse Insect Pests"
- Ramon Georgis, Brandt, "Commercialization of Entomopathogenic Nematodes: an Industry Perspective."
Kaya later said he was overwhelmed the outpouring. He sent the following note to the organizers: "I thank the organizers, Drs. Lynn LeBeck, Michael Parrella, Michael Klein, Ed Lewis, and David Shapiro-Ilan, for putting together this special symposium for me. I know it took a lot of effort in organizing the symposium, inviting speakers, and having a reception afterwards. I appreciate their efforts very much. I must say, however, that the speakers gave me too much credit when it was my students, post-doc, visiting scientists and collaborators who did the research and often came up with the research ideas and concepts. I was most privileged in having such dedicated students, researchers, friends, and colleagues around me and always having the great support of the department."
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Harry K. Kaya
Kaya received B.S. and M.S. degrees in entomology from the University of Hawaii, and a Ph.D. in insect pathology from the University of California, Berkeley. He worked briefly as an entomologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station (New Haven) before accepting a professorial position in the Department of Nematology and Department of Entomology at the University of California, Davis in 1976.
He served as chair of the Department of Nematology from 1994-2001, and was treasurer (1992-1996), vice president (2000-2002) and president (2002-2004) of the Society for Invertebrate Pathology (SIP). He is especially proud of his students, postdoctoral fellows, and visiting international scientists, who have excelled in entomology, insect pathology or nematology.
He is one of the founding editors of the journal Biological Control, and is currently Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Kaya has received a number of awards from ESA, SIP, and the Society of Nematologists. (From the Entomological Society of America website on his selection as an ESA Fellow, updated October 2007)