American cockroaches from the Bob Kimsey lab are ready to race in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology's cockroach races. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

Forensic entomologist Robert "Bob" Kimsey and doctoral student Grace Horne of the lab of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke are busily coordinating the Department of Entomology and Nematology's activities and displays for the 109th annual UC Davis Picnic Day, set Saturday, April 15.

 The "bug" exhibits will be at two sites:

• Briggs Hall, home of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, Kleiber Hall Drive, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and
• Bohart Museum of Entomology, located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surge Building, 455 Crocker Lane, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Theme of the Bohart Museum will be "Bugs, Boom, Bang!" The insect museum, directed by UC Davis distinguished professor Lynn Kimsey, houses a global collection of eight million insect specimens, a live "petting zoo" (including Madagascar hissing cockroaches, stick insects and tarantulas).

Cockroach races are among the popular activities at Briggs Hall. The roaches will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on a specially made race track in front of the building. These are American cockroaches, Periplaneta americana, from a colony kept by the late UC Davis entomology emeritus professor, Charles Judson (1926-2015). Bob Kimsey, who doubles as the advisor of the UC Davis Entomology Club, maintains the roach colony. The athletes, he said, "are ready to race." 

The roach races involve a roach track, an air pump (to get the roaches moving), volunteers, and spectators. Sometimes a roach jumps from the track and lands on scurrying feet.  

The line-up of entomological events at Briggs Hall also includes:

Bug Doctor
Briggs Hall Entryway
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Meet an entomologist and talk about insects! Bring an insect from your garden to identify.  

Maggot Art
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Create maggot art by dipping a live maggot into water-based, non-toxic paint. Voila! Art suitable or framing (or at least a spot on the refrigerator door

Dr. Death
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey will display and discuss his work. 

Entomology at UC Davis
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Displays of insects, including bees, ants and more
Graduate students, faculty and emeriti will staff the tables

Scavenger Hunt
Room 122 of Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
There will be several drawers of insects that people can look through to see if they can spot the insects on the check list

Fly-Tying
Briggs Hall courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Fly Fishers of Davis will show you how to tie a fly.

Insect-Themed T-shirt Sales
Briggs Hall entryway
9 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Members of the Entomology Graduate Student Association (EGSA) will be selling popular insect-themed t-shirts, including "The Beetles" 

Mosquito Control
Briggs Hall entrance
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District will be providing information on mosquitoes and how to protect yourself

Other Creepy Crawlies
122 Briggs Hall
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
UC Davis doctoral candidate Emma Jochim of the Jason Bond lab and others will display live arachnids, myriapods, tarantulas, scorpions, millipedes and more 

UC  Statewide Integrated Pest Management (UC IPM) 
Briggs Hall Courtyard
9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Learn about pests and how to control them from UC IPM scientists. The staff will be giving away lady beetles, aka ladybugs.

The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center, headed by director Amina Harris and affiliated with the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will host a honey tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the courtyard of Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science, 392 Old Davis Road. "Come taste and learn about UC Davis honey and honey varietals from North America," she said. "Honey available for purchase."

The UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology is chaired by nematologist and professor Steve Nadler. Molecular geneticist-physiologist and professor Joanna Chiu serves as the vice chair.  

Grace Horne of the Emily Meineke lab

The doctoral students are Grace Horne, who studies with urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor; Alexia “Lexie" Martin, who studies with community ecologist Rachel Vannette, associate professor; and Marshall Nakatani, who studies with bee scientist Brian Johnson, associate professor. 

The undergraduate recipient is entomology major Mingxuan “Gary” Ge, a research scholar in the campuswide  Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology (RSPIB), co-founded and administered by faculty in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. He is advised by community ecologist and professor Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology (and a RSPIB co-founder), and UC Davis distinguished professor and lepidopterist Art Shapiro of the Department of Evolution and Ecology.

Each recipient will receive a five-year fellowship providing three years of financial support, inclusive of an annual stipend of $37,000. 

The NSF-GRFP is the most prestigious award of its type. The annual acceptance rates are about 16 percent from among more than 12,000 annual applicants. The awards are given to outstanding graduate students who have demonstrated “the potential to be high-achieving scientists and engineers early in their careers.”

Grace Horne, Meineke Lab
Grace Horne, who grew up in Marlborough, N.H., is a 2021 graduate of Colby College, Waterville, Maine, where she double-majored in biology (evolution and ecology), and environmental science (conservation biology), receiving magna cum laude (with distinction) in both majors. Horne, who joined the Meineke lab in 2021, studies plant-insect interactions, urban ecology, global change biology, natural history and community science.

Horne submitted this successful proposal:

Working title: "Natural History Collections for Backcasting Plant-Insect Interactions in a Changing World."

Description: "Herbivory by caterpillars can have negative impacts on plant survival, growth, and reproduction. Interactions between plants and caterpillars, which are both metabolically tied to temperature, are particularly consequential for ecosystems. However, investigations of how species have and will interact under a changing climate are lacking. In particular, insects are in decline in many areas, but the downstream effects of insect herbivore losses and simultaneous climate change on plants are unclear. Thus, I propose to combine modern observations, a controlled experiment, and data cached in natural history collections to investigate effects of climate change on plant-insect interactions in a biodiversity hotspot."

Lexie Martin of the Rachel Vannette lab

Lexie Martin, a native of Cypress, Texas, is a 2021 graduate  of the University of Texas, Austin, where she received her  bachelor of science degree in biology, with a concentration in ecology, evolution and behavior, and a bachelor of science and arts in chemistry. She graduated with research distinction and as a dean's honored graduate. Martin's research interests include bees, mutualism, bee-microbe interactions, bee diversity, plant-pollination interactions, conservation and bee health. Her career plans are to pursue a professor position at a university, to continue researching bee-microbe interactions and other factors affecting bee health. Martin submitted this successful proposal 

Title: "Effects of Intraspecifically Transmitted Versus Environmentally Acquired Microbes on Bees."  

Description:"Although most social organisms can obtain microbes through intraspecific and environmental acquisition routes, few studies have directly compared how microbial acquisition route affects host health. In this project, I am investigating how microbes in the bee core gut microbiota vs. microbes obtained from flowers establish within the gut and affect the overall health of bumblebees (Bombus impatiens) and blue orchard bees (Osmia lignaria). I selectively introduced microbes obtained through each route to bees and will be measuring establishment within the gut, survivorship, fitness, and lipid stores. The results of this project will be applicable to other social organisms, as well as relevant to the management of commercial bees and crops."

Marshall Nakatani of the Brian Johnson lab

Marshall Nakatani, from Lansdale, Pa., is a 2021 graduate of George Washington Univeristy, where he received his bachelor of science degree in biology, with a concentration in cell and molecular biology. He is in his second year as a UC Davis doctoral student. Nakatani's general interests include eusociality, the division of labor in social insects, and how genetics and the environment interact to determine phenotype. His career plans: to continue working in academia.  

Nakatani submitted this winning proposal:  

Gary Ge, Yang Lab and Shapiro Lab

Gary Ge of the Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology who studies with Professor Louie Yang and UC Davis Distinguished Professor Art Shapiro.

In his project, he uses the American Apollo butterfly (Parnassius clodius) as a model to study how microclimatic conditions affect cold-adapted insects. P. clodius, a white butterfly, is found at high elevations in western United States (Washington, Oregon, Nevada and Canada) and in British Columbia, Canada.  

“The genus Parnassius is prone to global warming due to its affinity for alpine and arctic habitats, and several species are considered to be threatened,” Ge wrote in his winning proposal. “The American Apollo has habitats ranging from coastal forests to above the tree line. Thus, they experience very different combinations of microclimatic variations depending on time and location. Unlike most other butterflies, their larvae develop under cold macroclimatic temperatures and demonstrate active behavioral thermoregulation. This makes them highly dependent and consequently sensitive to microclimatic temperatures. In addition, the adults are poor dispersers, limiting gene flow between spatially close populations. Their larvae are also likely the sole insect herbivore of the host plant species, thus microhabitat identification is easy in the field.” 

“I hypothesize that mid-elevation populations of P. clodius have the best cold tolerance as overwintering eggs," Ge wrote in his proposal. "The main factor behind this is snow cover. Snow cover is known to provide significant insulation to whatever is underneath, usually creating higher microclimatic temperatures under the snow than above. At mid-elevations, the winter temperatures are lower than at low elevations, and the snow cover is supposedly less and more unstable compared to higher elevations. This means the mid-elevation populations are likely exposed to the coldest winter temperature, and have locally adapted to it.” 

A recent update: After data analysis, Ge and Yang found significant difference between supercooling points of the eggs from two P. clodius populations and it is in line with Ge's hypothesis. The higher elevation population has higher SCP (less cold tolerant), and the lower elevation population has lower SCP (more cold tolerant).”  

Shapiro, who has monitored butterfly populations across central California for the last 50 years, notes that “Parnassians are a group of cold-adapted Northern Hemisphere butterflies that are becoming increasingly important as objects of physiological, ecological and evolutionary study. They are only likely to grow more important in the context of climate change. Thus, Gary's study is very timely and should attract plenty of attention! It is demanding given the rigorous conditions in which they breed and develop, and he is likely to learn a lot that will facilitate future lab and field studies.”

Ge's project also factored in his winning the 2023 Dr. Stephen Garczynski Undergraduate Research Scholarship from the Pacific Branch, Entomological Society of America. 

GRFP's Mission. GRFP aims to “ensure the quality, vitality, and diversity of the scientific and engineering workforce of the United States,” according to its website, and to “broaden participation in science and engineering of underrepresented groups, including women, minorities, persons with disabilities, and veterans.” Applicants must be pursuing full-time research-based master's and doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) or in STEM education at accredited U.S. institutions."  The list of recipients is here.

UC Davis doctoral student Grace Horne is organizing a Bioblitz on April 29 in the UC Davis Arboretum and Public Garden.

The BioBlitz will take place at a new location: the Wyatt Deck (previously it was scheduled for the Carolee Shields White Flower Garden and Gazebo.)

"I am excited about the location change because we will be located next to two biodiversity hubs: The T. Elliot Weier Redwood Grove and the Mary Wattis Brown Garden of California Native Plants," said Horne,  a member of the laboratory of urban landscape entomologist Emily Meineke, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.

Reservations (free) are underway here.   

“We need your help to track and identify the wildlife in Davis!" Horne said.  "Participants will take photos of plants, animals, and fungi, and upload these observations to the community science platform, iNaturalist. All you need to bring is a smartphone or a photo-taking device. We will have a table with small lenses, bug boxes, field guides, insect specimens, and more to help you make observations of wildlife. Local experts will also be available to assist in identifying the wildlife."

This event will be hosted in coordination with the City Nature Challenge Sacramento. The City Nature Challenge (CNC) is an annual international competition among cities with the goal of documenting the most biodiversity within a four-day period.

This year, the challenge will occur from April 28 to May 1, "so any observations of wildlife that are uploaded to iNaturalist will contribute to the 2023 CNC," Horne said. "At the end of the CNC, the region with the most observations wins. We are looking to make as many quality observations as we can during the Davis Bioblitz, so stop by the Shields Gazebo to help contribute observations to the Greater Sacramento Region!”

Horne joined the Meineke lab in 2021 after graduating from Colby College,Waterville, Maine, where she double-majored in majored in biology (evolution and ecology), and environmental science (conservation biology). She served as education staff member and undergraduate researcher at The Caterpillar Lab, Marlborough, N.H. from 2018-2021. The environmental education organization focuses on inviting people—youth and adults alike—to share in stories of ecology, evolution, and natural history. She gained experience in conservation and education in the spring of 2020 when she participated in the Round River Conservation Studies in Maun, Botswana. 

Horne's undergraduate thesis about the effects of the decline of ash trees on native caterpillars, scored the cover of the February edition of the journal Environmental Entomology.  The paper, “Specialist Herbivore Performance on Introduced Plants During Native Host Decline,”  is co-authored by Ria Manderino of the Oak Spring Garden Foundation,  Upperville, VA and Samuel Jaffe of The Caterpillar Lab, Marlborough, N.H.  “Our publication highlights the importance of multispecies assessments of host plant acceptance,” said Horne, who studies plant-insect interactions, urban ecology, global change biology, natural history and community science in the Meineke lab.  

Directions to the new location:

Take 1-80 to the Richards Blvd. Exit (toward downtown). Go under the underpass. Turn left on 1st Street. Turn left onto Old Davis Road and cross a small bridge over the Arboretum Waterway. Parking is available at Visitor Parking Lot 5, straight ahead from the stop sign at Old Davis Road and Arboretum Drive. Wyatt Deck is located at the west end of the Redwood Grove, across Arboretum Drive from the Wyatt Pavilion Theater.