Not pictured in the group photo are Michael Bollinger (right) and Nikki Rae Burgess. The 2015 Fall Commencement for undergraduate students in the Colleges of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Biological Sciences, Engineering and Letters and Science took place Saturday morning, Dec. 12 at the UC Davis Pavilion.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Zalom was notified of the honor this week for his “significant contributions to insect science” by Royal Society president J. A. Pickett and secretary A.K. Murchie. He joins the ranks of eminent scientists including Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace.
The Royal Entomological Society plays a national and international role in disseminating information about insects and improving communication among entomologists. Founded in London in 1833, it is a successor to a number of short-lived societies dating back to 1745. In 1885 Queen Victoria granted a Royal Charter to the society. In the centennial year of 1933, King George V added the word "Royal" to the title of the organization.
Zalom is served as president of the Entomological Foundation in 2015 as it transitioned to a formal affiliation with the ESA. He has been heavily involved in research and leadership in integrated pest management (IPM) activities at the state, national and international levels. He directed the UC Statewide IPM Program for 16 years (1986-2002).
Zalom, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis, focuses his research on California specialty crops, including tree crops (almonds, olives, prunes, peaches), small fruits (grapes, strawberries, caneberries), and fruiting vegetables (tomatoes), as well as international IPM programs.
The IPM strategies and tactics Zalom has developed include monitoring procedures, thresholds, pest development and population models, biological controls and use of less toxic pesticides, that have become standard in practice and part of the UC IPM Guidelines for these crops.
As a member of the UC Davis entomology department since 1980, Zalom has published more than 330 refereed papers and book chapters, and more than 380 technical and extension articles. The articles span a wide range of topics related to IPM, including introduction and management of newer, soft insecticides, development of economic thresholds and sampling methods, management of invasive species, biological control, insect population dynamics, pesticide runoff mitigation, and determination of host feeding and oviposition preferences of pests.
The Zalom lab has responded to a number of important pest invasions in the last decade, with research projects on glassy-winged sharpshooter, olive fruit fly, a new biotype of greenhouse whitefly, invasive saltcedar, light brown apple moth, and the spotted wing Drosophila. They are currently working on two pest problems recently discovered in California, grapevine red blotch associated virus and brown marmorated stink bug.
Zalom is also a fellow of the ESA, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and California Academy of Sciences. He also served as vice chair of his department.
Highly honored for his work, Zalom has received ESA's “Recognition Award” and "Excellence in Extension Entomology Award," the Entomological Foundation's “Award for Excellence in IPM,” an award sponsored by Syngenta Crop Protection and given for “the most outstanding contributions to IPM” as well as its “IPM Team Award” as part of the seven-member UC Almond Pest Management Alliance IPM Team, and the “C. W. Woodworth Award” from the Pacific Branch of the ESA in 2011, its highest recognition. Additional notable honors Zalom has received include the “James H. Meyer Award” from UC Davis for teaching, research and service, the “Outstanding Mentor Award” from the UC Davis Consortium for Women and Research, and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
All will take place from 12:10 to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays in 122 Briggs Hall, Kleiber Hall Drive.
The winter seminar series:
Wednesday, Jan. 6
Mike Riehle
Associate Professor, University of Arizona
Title: "Manipulating Insulin Signaling in the Mosquito to Control Fitness and Parasite Resistance"
Host: Shirley Luckhart, professor, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, and graduate student advisor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Jan. 13
Wayne Hunter
Ph.D. Research Entomologist, USDA-ARS, Fort Pierce, FL.
Title: "Topical RNAi for Pest and Pathogen Management: Meeting the Needs of Organic and Industrial Producers."
Host: Diane Ullman, professor. UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Jan. 20
Sulley Ben-Mahmoud
Postdoc, UC Davis
Title: "Cloning and Characterization of a Basic Cysteine-like Protease (cathepsin L1) Expressed in the Gut of Larval Diaprepes abbreviatus L. (Coleoptera: Curculionidae).
Host: Diane Ullman, professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Jan. 27
J. P. Michaud
Professor, Kansas State University
Title: "Challenges to the Management of Migratory Pests on the High Plains: Thinking Outside the Field."
Host: Ed Lewis, associate dean for agricultural sciences in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Feb. 3
David Tarpy
Professor and Apiculturist, North Carolina State University
Title: Young Regality: a Day in the Life of a Virgin Queen Bee
Host: Elina Niño, Extension apiculturist, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Feb. 10
Thomas Phillips
Professor, Kansas State University
Title: "Pest Management for Stored Products: Persistent Problems and Hopeful Possibilities"
Host: Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Feb. 17
Patrick O'Grady
Associate Professor, UC Berkeley
Title: "Diversification of Hawaiian Diptera"
Host: Joanna Chiu, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, Feb. 24
Michael Kolomiets
Professor of Maize Defense Genetics, Texas A&M
Title: "Maize Lipid-Mediated Signaling in Defense against Insects and Nematodes"
Host: Christian Nansen, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, March 2
Yannick Wurm
Assistant Professor, Queen Mary University London
Title: "Population Genomics of Social Evolution"
Host: Brian Johnson, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Wednesday, March 9
Diane Campbell
Professor, UC Irvine
Title: "Behavior of Hawkmoths and Plant Reproductive Isolation: a Tale of Two Continents"
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
The seminars are open to all interested persons.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
His appointment was announced this week by Helene Dillard, dean of the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences and Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter.
Nadler chaired the Department of Nematology for six years, until the two departments merged in 2011. He succeeds Michael Parrella, who has accepted a position as the dean of the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Idaho, effective Feb. 1, 2016.
“Steve is an exceptionally strong researcher and teacher and has considerable administrative experience,” said Parrella, who served as chair from 1991-1999 and from 2009-2015. “I am confident he will continue to move the nationally ranked Department of Entomology and Nematology forward. It is good to know that I am leaving the department in very good hands.”
“I am pleased to have this opportunity to lead the Department of Entomology and Nematology,” Nadler said. “The department has remarkable faculty, and I look forward to working with them and our dedicated staff and students to advance our research, teaching and extension goals.”
The Department of Entomology and Nematology was recently ranked as the top program of its kind in the United States and has an annual budget of almost $20 million. The department has 21 ladder-rank faculty, 40 graduate students, an undergraduate major with 40 students and oversees the undergraduate animal biology major with more than 300 students.
Nadler joined the UC Davis faculty in 1996 as an associate professor and associate nematologist, advancing to professor in 2001. He was named chair of the Department of Nematology in May 2005 and held that leadership position until June 2011.
Nadler researches the molecular evolutionary biology of free-living and parasitic nematodes and teaches undergraduate classes in parasitology and nematology, and a graduate class in molecular phylogenetic analysis.In 2013 he was awarded the Henry Baldwin Ward Medal by the American Society of Parasitologists; this is the society's highest research honor. His research program is well funded by the National Science Foundation. He is a co-author (with L. S. Roberts and J. Janovy, Jr.) of Foundations of Parasitology (9th edition, McGraw Hill), globally the most widely used undergraduate parasitology textbook.
“Much of my recent evolutionary research,” Nadler said, “has focused on nematodes of the suborder Cephalobina, a group that includes numerous bacterial-feeding species in soil, but also some parasitic taxa hosted by invertebrates. My current NSF research is designed to discover and characterize nematode biodiversity in soil by applying high-throughput sequencing of individual nematodes and metagenetics.”
A native of St. Louis, Mo., Nadler received his bachelor of science degree, cum laude, in biology in 1980 from Missouri State University, Springfield. He holds a master's degree (1982) and a doctorate (1985) in medical parasitology from Louisiana State University Medical Center, New Orleans.
He did postdoctoral research from 1985 to 1986 as a National Institutes of Health research trainee in the Experimental Parasitology Training Program, Center for Parasitology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, followed by two years as a National Science Foundation postdoctoral research associate at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science, Baton Rouge.
Nadler joined the biological sciences faculty at Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, as an assistant professor in 1990. He was promoted to associate professor in 1995.
Active in the American Society of Parasitologists (ASP), Nadler served as the organization's president from 2007 to 2008. He is an associate editor of Systematic Parasitology; subject editor of Zookeys (molecular systematics and phylogeny); and a member of the editorial board of Parasitology (British).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Course instructors are Extension apiculturist Elina Lastro Niño; staff research associate Bernardo Niño; facility manager/staff research associate Charley Nye; and graduate student Tricia Bohls. All courses, open to the public, will be taught at the Laidlaw facility, located on Bee Biology Road, west of the UC Davis central campus.
The courses are:
“Planning Ahead for Your First Hive”: A short course on Saturday, Feb. 13 for those with little or no beekeeping experience;
“Working Your Colonies”: A short course on Saturday, Feb. 20 for novice beekeepers, or those who already have a colony and want to develop more skills; and
“Queen-Rearing Techniques” with two separate sessions: Saturday and Sunday, March 12-13 and Saturday and Sunday, March 19-20. This course is for beekeepers who want to learn how to rear their own queens or learn bee breeding.
Capsule Information:
“Planning Ahead for Your First Hives”: This Feb. 13th course will include lectures and hands-on exercises. “This course is perfect for those who have little or no beekeeping experience and who would like to obtain more knowledge and practical skills to move on to the next step of owning and caring for their own honey bee colonies,” said Elina Niño. Lectures will cover honey bee biology, beekeeping equipment, how to start your colony, and maladies of the hive. Hands-on exercises will cover how to build a hive, how to install a package, how to inspect your hive, and how to monitor for varroa mites. Participants will learn what is necessary to get the colony started and keep it healthy and thriving, she said. By the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about installing honey bee packages, monitoring their own colonies and maintaining a healthy colony. The $95 registration fee covers the cost of course materials (including a hive tool), lunch, and refreshments.
“Working Your Colonies”: This Feb. 20th course is for novice beekeepers who already have a colony and/or have taken a previous course, and seek to develop their skills. The afternoon will be spent entirely in the apiary with hands-on activities and demonstrations. Lectures will cover: maladies and biology review, products of the hive, and troubleshooting problems in the colony. Hands-on information will encompass colony evaluations, monitoring and managing pests, feeding your colony, and honey extraction.By the end of the course, participants will be knowledgeable about evaluating colonies, solving common beekeeping problems, extracting honey and wax, trapping pollen and propolis, and treating colonies for pests, the instructors said. The $150 registration fee covers the cost of course materials, lunch, and refreshments.
“Queen-Rearing Techniques”: Each of the two sessions, March 12-13 and March 19-20, will include lectures, hands-on exercises. Topics will include honey bee queen biology, basics of selective honey bee breeding programs, various queen-rearing techniques, testing hygienic behavior, and assessing varroa mite levels.
Participants will have the opportunity to learn about and practice multiple methods for queen rearing. “We will go through a step-by-step process for queen rearing via grafting, including setting up cell builders and mating nucs,” Elina Niño said. At the end of the course, participants will be able to check their grafting success and local participants can take home queen cells from the workshop. They also will learn techniques to assess varroa mite loads and to evaluate hygienic behavior. Each session also will include a guided tour of the adjacent Häagen-Dazs Honey Bee Haven, a half-acre bee friendly garden that attracts many pollinators and is filled with art from the UC Davis Art/Science Fusion Project and entomology/art classes taught by Diane Ullman and Donna Billick.
The $350 registration fee for each queen-rearing session covers the cost of course materials (including a set of grafting equipment: grafting frame with bars, plastic queen cups and a grafting tool), breakfast, lunch and refreshments on the days of the short course.
All participants in the Feb. 13-March 20 courses should bring their own bee suits or veils. They are also responsible for obtaining their own lodging. See map for directions. For more information, contact Bernardo Niño at elninobeelab@gmail.com or call 530-380-BUZZ (2899).
The Niño lab website is at http://elninobeelab.ucdavis.edu/, and the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/elninolab/. The bi-monthly apiculture newsletter, written by Elina Niño, is online.