- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
More than than 3,200 insect scientists have already registered, according to the ESA's communications program manager, Richard Levine. It is expected to be one of the largest entomology meetings in recent memory.
"The Northwest, with its natural beauty and location at the edge of the Pacific rim, is an ideal place to reflect on our Entomology 2014 theme: Grand Challenges Beyond Our Horizons," said Zalom, in an ESA news release "This year, ESA will be launching an effort to identify the most important challenges to which our discipline can make significant contributions.
More than 90 symposia are planned and will cover such topics as bed bugs, honey bees, monarch butterflies, ticks, native pollinators, pesticide regulations, biological control, integrated pest management, genetically-modified crops, invasive species, forestry, entomophagy, organic farming, insect-vectored diseases, and more. In addition, there will be 1,750 papers and posters, Levine reports.
Click here for the full meeting program.
Highlights include:
- Beyond Pesticides: The Conundrum of Bed Bugs
- Insects as Sustainable and Innovative Sources of Food and Feed Production
- Recovering Monarch Butterfly Populations in North America: A Looming Challenge for Science, the Public, Industry, and Legislators
- Classical Biological Control of the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, Halyomorpha halys (Stål)
- Nutrition and the Health and Behavior of Wild and Managed Bees
- Contributions of Mosquito Research to Science & Society
- Entomological Comics and Their Importance in Education and Culture
- RNAi: Emerging Technology to Overcome Grand Challenges in Entomology
- IPM: An International Organic Farming Strategy on Invasive Insect Species
- New Frontiers in Honey Bee Health Economics: Incorporating Entomological Research and Knowledge into Economic Assessments
Among the scientists to be honored at the ESA meeting are three from UC Davis: Professor Diane Ullman and doctorate recipients Kelly Hamby (2014) and James F. Campbell (1999)
Diane Ullman
Ullman earlier was named the recipient of the outstanding teaching award from the Pacific Branch of ESA. Ullman chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology in 2004-2005, and served as an associate dean for undergraduate academic programs, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. from 2005 to 2014. (See more information.)
Kelly Hamby
Hamby received her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis in March 2014, studying with major professor Frank Zalom. She has just accepted a position with the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Starting in November, she will be an assistant professor of sustainable agroecosystems and will be involved in integrated pest management research, extension, and teaching. (See more information)
James F. Campbell
Campbell is a research entomologist with the Center for Grain and Animal Health Research Service of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service, Manhattan, Kansas. (See more information)
Three professors who received their doctorates in entomology in the 1980s from UC Davis are among this year's 10 elected Fellows.
They are:
- Nilsa A. Bosque-Pérez, professor, Department of Plant, Soil and Entomological Sciences at the University of Idaho. She received two degrees from UC Davis: her master's degree in 1981 and Ph.D. in 1985.
- Gary Felton, professor and head of the Department of Entomology at Penn State University. He received his doctorate from UC Davis in 1988. In 2010, he delivered the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Lecture at UC Davis
- Murray B. Isman, professor of entomology and toxicology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He received his doctorate from UC Davis in 1981. In 2012, he delivered the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished Alumni Lecture at UC Davis
Graduate students in the UC Davis Department Entomology will participate in a debate on neonicotinoids. The team, coached by Michael Parrella, professsor and chair of the department, is comprised of Jenny Carlson, Anthony Cornel lab; Rei Margaret "Rei" Scampavia, Neal Williams/Edwin Lewis lab; Ralph Washington Jr., Nadler lab; Daniel Klittich, Parrella lab; and Mohammard-Amir Aghaee, Larry Godfrey lab.
ESA, founded in 1889, is the largest organization in the world serving the professional and scientific needs of entomologists and people in related disciplines. Its members are affiliated with educational institutions, health agencies, private industry, and government. Members are researchers, teachers, extension service personnel, administrators, marketing representatives, research technicians, consultants, students, and hobbyists. For more information, visit http://www.entsoc.org.
(Editor's Note: Richard Levine, the ESA's communications program manager, contributed to this report.)
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hamby received her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis in March 2014, studying with major professor Frank Zalom. She has just accepted a position with the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Starting in November, she will be an assistant professor of sustainable agroecosystems and will be involved in integrated pest management research, extension, and teaching.
Hamby's expertise includes sustainable integrated pest management strategies for various insect pests. Her dissertation research, titled "Biology and Pesticide Eesistance Management of Drosophila suzukii in Coastal California Berries," covered monitoring, yeast associations, chronobiology, chronotoxicity of insecticides, and the implications of this work to managing a recent invader, the spotted wing drosophila.
The Comstock award is the highest honor given to a graduate student. Hamby will be one of six honored at the national meeting. The others are:
- Eric Bohnenblust, Eastern Branch
- Rebecca Dew, International Branch
- Michael McCarville, North Central Branch
- Amber Dawn Tripodi, Southeastern Branch
- Nathan Lord, Southwestern Branch
Zalom praised Hamby's "established record of excellence in research, mentorship, and leadership." Kelly also received a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to study molecular mechanisms of target site resistance to insecticides in this system. In 2011, she was awarded the Lillian and Alex Feir Graduate Student Travel Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, or Molecular Biology from the ESA Pacific Branch.
Hamby received all three of her academic degrees from UC Davis, compiling a near perfect grade point average. While studying for her bachelor's degree in environmental toxicology, specializing in ecotoxicology, she completed the integrated studies honors program and graduated with highest honors, making the dean's honors list.
Hamby has published as a lead author in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals including Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Experimental and Applied Acarology, Journal of Economic Entomology, and PLoS ONE. She co-authored recently published articles in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics (the open-access journal of the Genetics Society of America), Environmental Entomology, and Acta Horticulturae, and articles submitted to the Journal of Applied Entomology and PLOS Biology.
A member of ESA since 2009, with membership in both the Plant-Insect Ecosystems section and the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicolgy sections, Hamby has attended and presented at four ESA annual meetings, and two PBESA meetings. She was invited to present papers in symposia at both the 2012 and 2013 National ESA meetings, and in a symposium at the 2012 PBESA meeting. Hamby has also presented papers at two international conferences including an invited symposium paper at the XXIX International Congress of Entomology in Daegu, Republic of Korea.
Zalom, an integrated pest management specialist and distinguished professor at UC Davis, is president of the 7000-member ESA and will preside over the Portland, Ore., meeting, ESA's 62nd annual meeting.
This is the second consecutive year that a UC Davis graduate student has received the Comstock award. Last year Matan Shelomi, a doctoral candidate who studies with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, received the award. The list of UC Davis recipients:
2014: Kelly Hamby
2013: Matan Shelomi
2008: Christopher Barker
1983: Elaine Backus
PBESA is comprised of 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), parts of Canada and Mexico, and seven U.S. territories.
The award memorializes John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), an American entomologist, researcher and educator known for his studies of scale insects and butterflies and moths, which provided the basis for systematic classification. Comstock was a member of the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for most of his career, except for his service as a chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1879-81).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Hamby, who received her doctorate in entomology at UC Davis at the end of the winter quarter, is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of her major professor, Frank Zalom, an integrated pest management specialist and professor of entomology, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology.
PBESA is comprised of 11 western states (Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming), parts of Canada and Mexico, and seven U.S. territories.
Zalom praised her "established record of excellence in research, mentorship, and leadership." She has a unique ability to apply cutting-edge science to IPM problem-solving, and an innate ability to connect well with growers and Cooperative Extension advisors off campus."
Assistant professor Joanna Chiu, in her letter of support, lauded Hamby's "skills, knowledge and technical prowess in her research areas, passion for education and community outreach, as well as ability to obtain research funding from federal and local agencies."
"When I first met Kelly," Chiu wrote, "she was already a competent researcher in integrated pest management, but for the last few years, she has the foresight and tenacity to complement her existing skills with a wide range of molecular biology, genomic, and bioinformatic techniques and has really brought her research program to a new level. She has been involved in the sequencing and annotating the genome of the Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) and is the first author for two very well received and innovative manuscripts detailing the insecticide chronotoxicity and microbiotic interaction of SWD respectively. I believe all these manuscripts will be widely cited, making Kelly a central figure in SWD research for years to come."
Hamby will receive the award on Monday, April 7 during the 98th annual PBESA meeting, set for April 6-9 at Marriott University Park, Tucson, Ariz. She will deliver a 20-minute address titled "Applications of Drosophila-Yeast Interactions to IPM" at the opening session of the meeting, immediately following the presentation by UC Davis Professor James Carey, the 2014 recipient of the CW Woodworth Award from the Pacific Branch.
Hamby will then be honored at the ESA's annual meeting, Nov. 16-19 in Portland, Ore., along with each of the John Henry Comstock Award recipients from the other five ESA branches: Eastern, International Branch, North Central, Southeastern and Southwestern.
Hamby's doctoral dissertation: “Biology and Pesticide Resistance Management of Drosophila suzukii in Coastal California Berries.” She has presented her work at meetings of the ESA, PBESA and overseas. The recipient of numerous awards, she was selected for a 2011-14 $130,000 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; the 2005-2009 UC Regents' Scholarship, a merit-based academic scholarship; the 2011 Lillian and Alex Feir Graduate Student Travel Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, or Molecular Biology, Pacific Branch of ESA (PBESA); and the 2009 UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Mary Regan Meyer Prize, Academic and Service Award for a Graduating Senior.
As a graduate student, Hamby guest-lectured in three entomology courses, helped organize freshman seminars “Insects in the Media” and “For Love of Insects,” and was the teaching assistant for ENT 110 “Arthropod Pest Management,” a 5-unit course that is one of the core classes for entomology majors. She was recently appointed by the Entomology and Nematology Department to teach 1/3 of the ENT 110 lectures and half of the labs in the winter quarter of 2014 because of conflicting responsibilities of her major professor, Frank Zalom, as the 2014 president of 7000-member ESA. ENT 110 is comprised of lectures on pest management theory and a laboratory that teaches identification of beneficial and pest arthropods. She has mentored nine undergraduate researchers, three of whom performed and published their own independent research; one who went on to graduate school in entomology at the University of Minnesota; and one who is now a staff researcher at the University of Georgia.
Hamby has published as a lead author in well-regarded peer-reviewed journals including Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Experimental and Applied Acarology, Journal of Economic Entomology, and PLoS ONE. She co-authored recently published articles in G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics (the open-access journal of the Genetics Society of America), Environmental Entomology, and Acta Horticulturae, and articles submitted to the Journal of Applied Entomology and PLOS Biology.
A member of ESA since 2009, with membership in both the Plant-Insect Ecosystems section and the Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicolgy sections, Hamby has attended and presented at four ESA annual meetings, and two PBESA meetings. She was invited to present papers in symposia at both the 2012 and 2013 National ESA meetings, and in a symposium at the 2012 PBESA meeting. Hamby has also presented papers at two international conferences including an invited symposium paper at the XXIX International Congress of Entomology in Daegu, Republic of Korea.
This is the second consecutive year that a UC Davis graduate student has received the Comstock award. Last year Matan Shelomi, a doctoral candidate who studies with Lynn Kimsey, director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology and professor of entomology at UC Davis, received the award. The list of UC Davis recipients:
2014: Kelly Hamby
2013: Matan Shelomi
2008: Christopher Barker
1983: Elaine Backus
The award memorializes John Henry Comstock (1849-1931), an American entomologist, researcher and educator known for his studies of scale insects and butterflies and moths, which provided the basis for systematic classification. Comstock was a member of the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., for most of his career, except for his service as a chief entomologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (1879-81).
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
"Unlike common drosophilids that develop in rotten or decaying fruit, Drosophila suzukii (Matsumura) prefer to oviposit in ripe or ripening fruit," Hamby says in her abstract. "Native to Southeast Asia, D. suzukii has become an important pest of berries and small fruits throughout North America and Europe since its initial detection in Santa Cruz County, Calif. in 2008. The majority of U.S. organic berry farm acreage is concentrated on the west coast, and organic berries are a growing industry that now exceeds 1500 total farms. Current D. suzukii management strategies for both organic and conventional growers rely heavily on insecticide usage because other pest management tactics are still being developed and optimized. Management guidelines established shortly after the emergence of D. suzukii as a serious pest included monitoring recommendations, but these were made with little information on trap design and potential lures for use in raspberries."
Hamby will address her dissertation work on monitoring, yeast associations, chronobiology, chronotoxicity of insecticides and the implications of this work to managing D. suzukii in California commercial berry and small fruit crops. She will be introduced by Zalom, her major professor and president of the 7000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA).
Hamby received her master's degree and bachelor's degree from UC Davis, compiling a near perfect grade point average.
A graduate student researcher since 2009, Hamby serves as a winter quarter co-instructor of the "Arthropod Pest Management" class. She earlier was a lab assistant in the Aquatic Toxicology Lab, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, and the Fish Conservation and Culture Lab, UC Davis Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering.
Hamby has presented her work at meetings of the ESA, Pacific Branch of the ESA (PBESA) and overseas. The recipient of numerous awards, she was selected for a 2011-14 $130,000 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; the 2005-2009 UC Regents' Scholarship, a merit-based academic scholarship; the 2011 Lillian and Alex Feir Graduate Student Travel Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, or Molecular Biology, Pacific Branch of ESA (PBESA); and the 2009 UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences Mary Regan Meyer Prize, Academic and Service Award for a Graduating Senior.
Hamby also received the 2012 $1000 UC Davis Graduate Student Travel Award to travel to XXIV International Congress of Entomology, Daegu, Republic of Korea to present her research. Her other honors include a 2011-14 $130,000 National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, and travel grant awards to attend entomological meetings.
Hamby mentored a number of undergraduates, including Helen T. Nguyen (2013), Mitchell J. Bamford (2013), Daren W. Harris (2012-2013), Daniel C. Fok (2011-2013), Doris Yu (2011-2012), Stacy A. Hamby (2011), Yelizaveta Luchkovska (2011), Heather E. Wilson (2010-2012), Samuel J. Fahrner (2010-2011).
Her publications include:
Scheidler, N., Siddappaji, M., Hamby, K.A., Chiu, J.C., Zalom, F.G., and Syed, Z. In prep.What makes one Drosophila species a pest: Molecular and neural correlates for host odor recoginition? PLoS Biology
Harris, D.W., Wilson, H.E., Zalom, F.G., and Hamby, K.A.* Submitted. Seasonal trapping of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in a multi-crop setting. Journal of Applied Entomology
Hamby, K.A., Bolda, M.P., Sheehan, M.E., and Zalom, F.G. Accepted with Revision. Seasonal occurrence, lure comparison, and trapping bias of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in California commercial raspberries. Environmental Entomology
Lee, J.C., Shearer, P.W. Barrantes, L.D., Beers, E.H., Burrack, H.J., Dalton, D.T., Dreves, A.J., Gut, L.J., Hamby, K.A., Haviland, D.R., Isaacs, R., Nielsen, A.L., Richardson, T., Rodriguez-Saona, C.R., Stanley, C.A., Walsh, D.B., Walton, V.M., Yee, W.L., Zalom, F.G., and Bruck, D.J. 2013. Trap designs for monitoring Drosophila suzukii (Diptera:Drosophilidae). Environmental Entomology 42(6): 000-000 DOI: 10.1603/EN13148
Chiu, J.C., Jiang, X., Zhao, L., Hamm, C.A., Cridland, J.M., Saelao, P., Hamby, K.A., Lee, E.K., Kwok, R.S., Zhang, G., Zalom, F.G., Walton, V.M., and Begun, D.J. 2013. Genome of Drosophila suzukii, the spotted wing drosophila. G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics DOI: 10.1534/g3.113.008185
Yu, D., Zalom, F.G. and Hamby, K.A. 2013. Host status and fruit odor response of Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) to figs and mulberries. Journal of Economic Entomology 106(4): 1932-1937.
Hamby, K.A., Kwok, R.S., Zalom, F.G., and Chiu, J.C. 2013. Integrating circadian activity and gene expression profiles to predict chronotoxicity of Drosophila suzukii response to insecticides. PLoS ONE 8(7): e68472. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0068472.
Hamby, K.A., and Zalom, F.G. 2013. Relationship of almond kernel damage occurrence to navel orangeworm (Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) success. Journal of Economic Entomology 106(3):1365-1372.
Hamby, K.A., Alifano, J.A., and Zalom, F.G. 2013.Total effects of contact and residual exposure of bifenthrin and λ-cyhalothrin on the predatory mite Galendromus occidentalis (Acari: Phytoseiidae). Experimental and Applied Acarology 61: 183-193. DOI: 10.1007/s10493-013-9680-z
Wilson, H.E., Hamby, K.A.,* and Zalom, F.G. 2013. Host susceptibility of ‘French Prune' Prunus domestica to Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae). Acta Horticulturae (ISHS) 985:249-254.
Lee, J.C., Burrack, H.J., Barrantes, L.D., Beers, E.H., Dreves, A.J., Hamby, K.A., Haviland, D.R., Isaacs, R., Richardson, T.A., Shearer, P.W., Stanley, C.A., Walsh, D.B., Walton, V.M., Zalom, F.G., and Bruck, D.J. 2012. Evaluation of monitoring traps for Drosophila suzukii (Diptera: Drosophilidae) in North America. Journal of Economic Entomology 105(4): 1350-1357.
Hamby, K.A., Hernández, A., Boundy-Mills, K., and Zalom, F.G. 2012.Yeast associations of spotted wing drosophila (Drosophila suzukii, Diptera: Drosophilidae) in cherries and raspberries. Applied and Environmental Microbiology 78(14): 4869-4873. Journal cover article.
Hamby, K., Gao, L.W., Lampinen, B., Gradziel, T., Zalom, F. 2011. Hullsplit date and shell seal relationship to navel orangeworm (Amyelois transitella, Lepidoptera: Pyralidae) infestation on almonds. Journal of Economic Entomology 104(3): 965-969.
For the list of the remaining noonhour seminars, see this page.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Native to Southeast Asia, Drosophilia suzukii infests soft-skinned fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, cherries, blueberries and blackberries. The insect was first detected in the United States in 2008 when scientists identified it in the central coastal region of California. It can cause an estimated $300 million in damage annually to California crops.
In pioneering research, the four-member team from the Department of Entomology and Nematology sought to find out the pest’s response to insecticide toxicity and whether it could be predicted through the integration of circadian activity and gene expression profiles.
“It is possible that if insecticides can be applied at the time when the SWD's defense system against insecticides is at its weakest state, they will be more effective,” Chiu said. “Results from our experiments turned out to be a bit more complicated than we originally envisioned, but we indeed found that at least for malathion, there is an optimal time for application to inflict maximum damage to SWD. We hope that growers will be able to use fewer insecticides, thereby decreasing damage to the environment and decreasing costs at the same time.”
“We caution growers that we still need to conduct field trials to confirm our laboratory observations,” Chiu addedf.
“SWD is becoming a big problem for growers of soft-skinned fruits such as strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, and cherries all over the world,” Chiu pointed out. “With the need to satisfy insect damage standards and to reduce crop loss, the growers generally adopt high levels of insecticide usage for SWD control and risk reduction. In the long-term, this will lead to development of insecticide resistance, not to mention the damage inflicted on beneficial insects.”
“Current Drosophila suzukii management strategies rely heavily on insecticide usage, because other pest management tactics are still being development and optimized,” wrote Chiu and fellow authors Frank Zalom, integrated pest management specialist and professor of entomology; doctoral candidate Kelly Hamby of the Zalom lab; and graduate student Rosanna Kwok of the Chiu lab.
Said Hamby: “The paper is a first look at Drosophilia suzukii daily activity rhythms under a temperature and light/dark cycle mimicking California raspberry growing conditions as well as a look at the daily cycling of insecticide susceptibility enzymes that could potentially detoxify insecticides. The next steps would be to include more temperature conditions, more insecticides, and attempt an experiment in the field.”
"For me, the importance of our research is that it allows us to move toward a more effective and efficient way of controlling this pest, which is rapidly becoming of prominent importance because of how fast Drosophila suzukii has been spreading throughout the western US since its initial introduction," said Kwok. "By recognizing temporal differences that may contribute to a difference in toxicity to certain pesticides, we may be able to move toward management programs that are tailored to target a specific species of insect. We may be able to spray less or less frequently if we can find out when these pests are most susceptible."
"As for the future," Kwok added, "I think that as we sequence and fully annotate the D. suzukii genome we can identify more genes that are implicated in toxicity and pesticide resistance."
Chiu praised the work of the graduate students. "I think Kelly and Rosanna really did a fantastic job on this project!" she said.
The study took place under laboratory conditions simulating summer and winter in Watsonville. The team found significant differences in the chronotoxicity of SWD toward malathion, with the highest susceptibility at 6 a.m., “corresponding to peak expression of cytochrome P450s that may be involved in bioactivation of malathion,” they wrote in their abstract. “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.”
The spotted-wing drosophila was first observed in Japan as early as 1916. The females lay their eggs in ripe and ripening fruit, unlike other Drosophila species known to infest overripe and blemished fruit. The larvae feed on the fruit. “The adult is the only stage that can be targeted for control by conventional pesticides,” the UC Davis scientists wrote. The most commonly used insecticides are organophosphates, pyrethroids and spinosyns.