Ecologist Sylvain Pincebourde, a research director at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), France, will speak on "The Key Role of Microclimates in Modulating the Response of Ectotherms to Climate Change" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar.

The seminar, virtual only, will be at 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time, Wednesday, March 15. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672

"In a warming world, species may buffer to some extent part of the environmental changes by exploiting the microclimates that are available across space and time," Pincebourde says in his abstract. "My presentation will focus on the role of the leaf surface microclimate, and in particular temperature, in driving the vulnerability of insects to climate change. I will exemplify the framework we apply to investigate this role. Our approach is deeply rooted into a multidisciplinary background, relying on physics, physiology and ecology of both plant and animal sciences. The microclimatic effects can be quite subtle and mechanistic approaches are fundamentally needed to depict the complexity of the interaction between plant, insect and climate."

On Research Gate, Pincebourde explains that his work "focuses on the role of microclimates in modulating the response of ectotherms (mostly insects) to climate change. I use ecophysiological approaching mostly relying to thermal ecology, connected to the biophysical ecology of organisms. I integrate both temporal and spatial issues of thermal variability. My research has connection with conservation biology by identifying novel or unsuspected interactions between (micro) climates and organisms."

Urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor with the UC Davis Department of Entomology andNematology, and coordinator of the department's weekly seminars, will host the seminar and introduce him.

Pincebourde holds a doctorate (2005) from the Institute of Research on Insect Biology (IRBI), France, a joint research unit of the University of Tours and CNRS. He studied for his doctorate with Professor Jérôme Casas. Pincebourde then completed postdoctoral fellowships at the University South Carolina (2006-2007), supervised by Professor Brian Helmuth, and at IRBI (2008-2009), working with Professor Casas's team that studied the ecology of multitropic systems and biomimetism.

Pincebourde joined CNRS as a research scientist, second class, in 2009 and advanced to first class in 2015. Since 2018, he has been in charge of the IRBI's organism-environmental interactions team, known as INOV or the INteractions Organisme-enVironnment.

He has published his work in a number of journals, including Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, Ecological Monographs, Agriculture and Forest Entomology, Functional Ecology, Journal of Thermal Biology, Biotropica, with papers pending in Global Change Biology and Freshwater Biology. He is a member of the editorial board for American Naturalist. 

The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.

Research molecular biologist Dana Nayduch of the Agricultural Research Service, U. S. Department of Agriculture (USDA-ARS),  will speak on "Can Surveying Microbial Communities of House Flies Help Us Understand Emerging Threats to Animal and Human Health?" at the next UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar.

Nayduch, based in Manhattan, Kansas, will speak at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, March 1 in 122 Briggs Hall. Her lecture also will be virtual. The Zoom link:
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672

"Dana is doing very cool work with house flies and looking at how bacteria in the fly are trading antibiotic resistance genes amongst themselves," said the seminar host, medical entomologist-geneticist Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. "It's an interesting and scary system as antibiotic resistance is so high due to antibiotic usage in livestock rearing."

"House flies (Musca domestica L.)  are ubiquitous, cosmopolitan pests inhabiting urban, rural and agricultural environments throughout the world. In these habitats acquire microbes from septic substrates that are used for feeding and reproduction. Flies subsequently harbor and disseminate these microorganisms which may pose a risk to human and animal health," Nayduch says in her abstract. "Our research characterizes and analyzes microbial communities of house flies using culture-based and molecular approaches in order to better understand their roles in the transmission of important bacterial disease agents and/or antimicrobial resistance. Because the microbial communities within house flies represent a snapshot of the microbes found in their local habitat, we also gain valuable insight into existing and emerging microbial threats to humanand animal health through our surveys which can help in predicting and preventing disease."

A pre-seminar will take place from 3:30 to 4:10 in 158 Briggs.

Nayduch, an authority on fly-microbe interactions, joined USDA in August of 2011. She is a member of the USDA-ARS Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Unit, researching molecular and microbiological studies of Culicoides midges and house flies. She works with several laboratories on comparative transcriptomic and microbiomic studies of Muscid flies.

Nayduch received her bachelor's degree in animal science from Rutgers University and her doctorate in zoology from Clemson University, where she studied house flies as vectors for pathogens. She served as a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University School of Public Health, working on molecular-genetic studies of tsetse flies. She then joined Georgia Southern University (GSU) as an assistant professor of biology in 2004, advancing to associate professor in 2009. At GSU she received NIH-R15 funding to study house fly-microbe molecular interactions.

Nayduch, active in the Entomological Society of America (ESA), is the vice president-elect of the Medical, Urban and Veterinary Entomology (MUVE) Section. A peer reviewer for the Journal of Medical Entomology and an editorial board member and subject editor for Annals for ESA, she organized and edited the first special collection for Annals: “Filth Fly-Microbe Interactions."

The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. All are virtual. A pre-seminar coffee is held from 3:30 to 4:10 p.m. in 158 Briggs. Urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, coordinates the seminars. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.

Lauren Ponisio, an assistant professor of biology at the University of Oregon who seeks to preserve and restore populations of bees and other pollinators, will speak on "Disease in Plant-Pollinator Communities" at the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology seminar at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 8 in 122 Briggs Hall.

Her seminar also will be virtual. The Zoom link: 
https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672. Host is community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

"Infectious disease prevalence is among the top five drivers of global extinction, including in wild bees," the bee biologist says in her abstract. "With the global decline of wild bees, our work aims to contribute to understanding how community characteristics shape infectious disease prevalence in plant-pollinator communities. Infectious parasites can influence host immunity, physiology, and reproduction. The sharing of floral resources is a common mode of disease transmission among pollinators."

"Increasing host aggregation on floral resources can increase disease prevalence, that is, amplification," Ponisio noted. "Conversely, high host species diversity---even if accompanied by host aggregation---may dilute infection. Because bees pick up parasites from flowers, but not all flowers transmit parasites equally, flower abundance and diversity may further contribute to parasite dilution. In three systems, mass-blooming sunflower in Yolo County, CA, harvested forests in Coast Range, OR, and high elevation meadows across the Southwestern U.S., I examine how the factors that shape plant-pollinator abundance and diversity and the ramifications for parasite prevalence in wild bee communities. Across all systems, more than 40% of bees have at one parasite. Both natural (phenology) and human-induced (years post-harvest, mass-blooming crops) modification of the bee and floral communities indirectly affected parasitism by altering host community characteristics. I found a consistent amplification effect of host (bee) abundance and detected dilution through either host diversity or floral diversity in each system."

On her website, Ponisio elaborates: "We focus on understanding the mechanisms by which species interactions maintain species diversity, and how we can harness these processes to manage and restore diversity in human-modified systems. We focus on pollinators because they are critical for pollination in managed and natural plant communities, but our research is broadly applicable across ecological interactions. Our aim to discover new insights into how communities form, evolve, and persist through time and space, aiding in the prediction and prevention of community collapse. We combine modeling, synthesis and field-based work, and adhere to the principles of reproducible, open science."

Lauren, who grew up in Fresno, holds a bachelor's degree in biology, with honors, in ecology and evolution (2010) from Stanford University, and her master's degree in biology (2011) from Stanford. She received her doctorate from the Department of Environmental Science Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, in 2016.

She conducted postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and served on the faculty at UC Riverside before accepting her current position. She received graduate fellowships from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture, as well as a postdoctoral fellowship from the Berkeley Institute for Data Science. She was named among the Global Food Initiative's “30 Under 30” in Food Systems in 2016.  

Ponisio says one of her most difficult field work experiences occurred in Yosemite National Park, according to her People Behind the Science podcast. "Their study on the effects of fires on pollinators required them to backpack out to remote sites where there had been natural fires. Lauren started working months ahead of time to get ready for the trip and prepare dehydrated meals for the lab to eat. One day, they opened the large canister where they had been storing their food to protect it from bears, and they discovered the food was gone. All that was left was a handwritten note from someone thanking them for leaving out food."

"The next day, the lab's field assistant tripped over a log and sprained her ankle. Then they accidentally left their sampling gear at a site and had to hike all the way back to retrieve it. Later, a bear came into their campsite and destroyed many of the traps they needed to collect pollinators for their study. At this point, Lauren and her colleagues were exhausted, surviving on snacks, their field assistant could barely walk, and much of the equipment they needed had been destroyed. In the face of all of these challenges, Lauren stayed calm. These kinds of things happen in field research, and everyone made it back to share the story."

Ponisio was featured on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" in January of 2021 when she discussed "Wildfires Open Forests for Wildlife and Research."

Ponisio is the lead author of a recently submitted journal paper, "Mass-Flowering Crops Attract Bees, Amplifying Parasitism,"  co-authored by G. P. Smith, H. Sardinas, J. Zorn, Q. S. McFrederick and S. H.Woodard. (See CV)

The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars are held on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall. All are virtual. They are coordinated by urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor. (See schedule.) She may be reached at ekmeineke@ucdavis.edu for technical issues.

Molecular geneticist and mosquito researcher Clément Vinauger, an assistant professor with the Department of Biochemistry, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Va., will lead off the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter seminars with a virtual presentation on "Neural and Molecular Basis of Mosquito Behavior" on Wednesday, Jan. 11.

The seminar, set for 4:10 p.m., Pacific Time, will be virtual only, announced seminar series coordinator Emily Meineke, an urban landscape entomologist and assistant professor.

The Zoom link: https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/95882849672. 

His abstract: "Because they vector pathogens to humans, mosquitoes impact millions of people every year. The global strategy for the management of mosquito-borne diseases involves controlling vector populations, to a large extent, through insecticide application. However, vector-borne diseases are now resurgent, largely because of rising insecticide resistance in vector populations and the drug resistance of pathogens. In this context, the Vinauger Lab studies the molecular, physiological, and neural basis of mosquito behavior. We rely on a collaborative, integrative, and
multidisciplinary approach, at the intersection between data science, neuro-ethology, molecular biology, and chemical ecology. Our long-term goal is to identify targets to disrupt mosquito-host interactions and reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission."

On his website, Vinauger elaborates: "The ability of mosquitoes to detect, process, and respond to olfactory information emitted by their hosts can affect disease transmission. The magnitude of their responses to host and plant odors varies drastically throughout the day, but, despite their clear epidemiological relevance, the neural and molecular mechanisms acting at the circuit levels to control mosquito behavior remain to be determined. In the lab, we employ an interdisciplinary approach combining behavioral assays, electrophysiological recordings, transcriptomic analysis, and CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, to characterize rhythms in odorant detection, perception, and olfactory behavior, thereby identifying the genetic basis of the temporal plasticity in mosquito-host interactions."

Molecular geneticist and physiologist Joanna Chiu, professor and vice chair of the Department of Entomology and Nematology and a Chancellor's Fellow, will serve as the host. "I have very high regard for Dr. Vinauger's integrative and multidisciplinary research into the biochemical and neurophysiological basis of insect behavior," Professor Chiu said. "His research program is innovative and rigorous, leveraging techniques in quantitative behavioral analysis, bioengineering, neurobiology, and computational methods to address exciting and important questions in mosquito biology and behavior." 

The Vinauger lab "studies the molecular, physiological, and neural basis of mosquito behavior," according to its website. "We are a group of experimental biologists, relying on a collaborative, integrative, and multidisciplinary approach, at the intersection between data science, neuro-ethology, molecular biology, and chemical ecology. Our long-term goal is to identify targets to disrupt mosquito-host interactions and reduce mosquito-borne disease transmission."

The Vinauger lab's latest publication, "Visual Threats Reduce Blood-Feeding and Trigger Escape Responses in Aedes aegypti Mosquitoes," appears in the Dec. 9, 2022 edition of Scientific Reports.

The abstract: 
"The diurnal mosquitoes Aedes aegypti are vectors of several arboviruses, including dengue, yellow fever, and Zika viruses. To find a host to feed on, they rely on the sophisticated integration of olfactory, visual, thermal, and gustatory cues emitted by the hosts. If detected by their target, this latter may display defensive behaviors that mosquitoes need to be able to detect and escape in order to survive. In humans, a typical response is a swat of the hand, which generates both mechanical and visual perturbations aimed at a mosquito. Here, we used programmable visual displays to generate expanding objects sharing characteristics with the visual component of an approaching hand and quantified the behavioral response of female mosquitoes. Results show that Ae. aegypti is capable of using visual information to decide whether to feed on an artificial host mimic. Stimulations delivered in a LED flight arena further reveal that landed Ae. aegypti females display a stereotypical escape strategy by taking off at an angle that is a function of the direction of stimulus introduction. Altogether, this study demonstrates that mosquitoes landed on a host mimic can use isolated visual cues to detect and avoid a potential threat."

Vinauger joined the Virginia Tech faculty in October 2017, after serving as a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Washington, Seattle. Educated in France, he received his bachelor of science degree in biology/biological sciences in 2006 from the University of Orléans; his master's degree in 2008 from the University of Tours, France; and his doctorate in 2011 from the University of Tours, Research Institute on Insect Biology.

The UC Davis Department of Entomology seminars are held on Wednesdays through March 15. (See schedule.) Eight of the 10 will be in-person in 122 Briggs Hall,  and all will be virtual.