- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
The UC Davis Department of Nematology's winter quarter seminars will take place on Wednesdays at 4:10 p.m., beginning Jan. 5 and continuing through March 9, announced seminar coordinator and nematologist Shahid Siddique, assistant professor.
Both in-person and virtual seminars will be broadcast via Zoom at https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/99515291076. The in-person seminars will be in 122 Briggs Hall.
For technical issues, Siddique may be reached at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu.
The schedule:

- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Both in-person and virtual seminars will be broadcast via Zoom at https://ucdavis.zoom.us/j/
The schedule:
Jan. 5, 2022
Randa Jabbour, associate professor, agroecology, University of Wyoming
Virtual seminar
Title: "Interdisciplinary Collaborations in Pest Management Research--My Alfalfa Weevil Stories"
Host: Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Jan. 12, 2022
Sylvia Fischer, Mosquito Study Group, Department of Ecology, Genetics and Evolution, Universidad de Buenos Aires
Virtual seminar
Title: "Recent Expansion of Aedes aegypti Distribution: Are the Populations Adapting to Colder Climate Regions?"
Host: Erin "Taylor Kelly, doctoral student in the Geoffrey Attardo lab, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Jan. 19, 2022
Megan Meuti, assistant professor, Department of Entomology, The Ohio State University
Virtual seminar
Title: "How Do Mosquitoes Correctly Interpret Environmental Signals into Complex Seasonal Responses?"
Host: Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Tobin Hammer, postdoctoral researcher, University of Texas, Austin (he will start as an assistant professor in UC Irvine's Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department in January 2022)
In-person seminar
Title: "Diversity and Dynamism in Social Bee Microbiomes"
Host: Rachel Vannette, associate professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Feb. 2, 2022
Simon Niels Groen, assistant professor, Department of Nematology, UC Riverside
In-person seminar
Title: "Plant Toxins and the Evolution of Host-Parasite Interactions"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Feb. 9, 2022
Vince D'Amico, research entomologist, Communities and Landscapes of the Urban Northwest, U.S. Department of Agriculture
In-person seminar
Title: "Monitoring and Ecological Research in the Forests of the BosWash Megalopolis"
Host: Geoffrey Attardo, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
Feb. 16, 2022
Michelle Heck, adjunct associate professor and research molecular biologist, Boyce Thompson Institute, Ithaca, N.Y.
Virtual seminar
Title: Topic to be announced (Her program uses a combination of molecular, genetic, and proteomics approaches to understand how insects transmit plant pathogens and how pathogens manipulate host plants to ensure replication and transmission. A second area of research is the development of new pest management tools to enhance cultural control and to provide new management strategies for insect vector-borne diseases in plants)
Host: Tiffany Lowe-Power, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Plant Pathology
Feb. 23, 2022
Adam Steinbrenner, assistant professor, Department of Biology, University of Washington
In-person seminar
Title: "Plant Immune Recognition of Insect Herbivores"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
March 2, 2022
Erica Henry, postdoctoral scholar, conservation biology, North Carolina State University
In-person seminar
Title: "Insect Conservation in an Uncertain Future"
Host: Emily Meineke, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
March 9, 2022
Melissa Mitchum, professor, plant nematology, University of Georgia
Virtual seminar
Title: "The Tricks Phytonematodes Use to Modulate Plant Development"
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology
For any Zoom technical issues, Siddique may be reached at ssiddique@ucdavis.edu.



- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
All seminars will be held on Wednesdays at 4:10 PM (PST). Zoom links will be accessible via a Google form link.
Wednesday, Jan. 20
Daniel Hasegawa, Ph.D
USDA-ARS, Crop Improvement and Protection Research: Salinas, Calif.
Title: "Landscape and Molecular Approaches for Managing Thrips and Thrips-transmitted Viruses in the Salinas Valley of California."
Website link
Host: Ian Grettenberger
Google form link to access the seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 27
Charissa deBekker, Ph.D
University of Central Florida, Biology Department
Title: "What Makes a Zombie Ant Tick? Connecting Genomes with Behavioral Phenomes in Ants, Manipulated by a Fungal Parasite."
Website link
Host: Ian Grettenberger
Google form link to access seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 3
Shalene Jha, Ph.D
University of Texas, Austin, Department of Integrative Biology
Title: "Plant-Insect Interactions and Ecosystem Services in the Context of Global Change"
Website link
Host: Charlie Nicholson, postdoctoral researcher, Neal Williams lab and Elina Lastro Niño lab
Google form link for Zoom info
Wednesday, Feb. 10
Estelí Jimenez-Soto, Ph.D
UC Santa Cruz, Environmental Studies Department
Title: "A Complex Cup of Joe: Biodiversity, Pest Control and Political Ecologies in Mexican Coffee
Agroforests"
Website link
Host: Marshall McMunn, postdoctoral fellow, Rachel Vannette lab
Google form link for Zoom info
Wednesday, Feb. 17
Brian Weiss, Ph.D
Yale University, Department of Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases
Title: "Metabolic Complementation Between Members of the Tsetse Fly Holobiont"
Website link
Host: Geoff Attardo, assistant professor
Google form link for Zoom info
Wednesday, Feb. 24
Jessica Kansman, Ph.D
Pennsylvania State University, Department of Entomology
Title: "To be an Aphid in a Cruel World: How Abiotic and Biotic Stressors Influence Plant-Insect
Interactions"
Website link
Host: Ian Grettenberger
Google form link for Zoom info
Wednesday, March 3
Monika Gulia-Nuss, Ph.D
University of Nevada, Reno, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Title: Pending (Her research program investigates the fundamental questions related to vector biology and vector-parasite interaction. She is particularly interested in aspects of invertebrate reproductive physiology, nutrient allocation, and vector competence and population genomics)
Website link
Host: Geoff Attardo, assistant professor
Google form link for Zoom info
Wednesday, March 10
Romina Rader, Ph.D
University of New England, School of Environmental and Rural Science
Title: Pending (Her research deals with community ecology in agroecosystems)
Website link
Host: Neal Williams, professor
Google form link for Zoom info
For questions, contact Grettenberger at imgrettenberger@ucdavis.edu.
- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Karen Menuz, assistant professor, Department of Physiology and Neurobiology, University of Connecticut, will be the first speaker in the UC Davis Department of Entomology's winter quarter seminars.
Menuz will speak on "Molecular Basis of Insect Olfaction" at 4:10 p.m., Wednesday, Jan. 8 in 122 Briggs Hall. Host is chemical ecologist Walter Leal, distinguished professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the entomology department.
Her abstract: "Development of new insect control measures will require the discovery of novel molecular targets that can alter their olfactory capabilities. The past two decades have witnessed an explosion of research on the two insect odor receptor families, but nearly all odor receptors are poorly conserved. Therefore, my research focuses on molecules that are likely to play critical roles in olfaction in distantly related insect species. Recently, we have found that Amt/Rh ammonia transporters are essential for the sensing of ammonia, an odor released by humans and attractive to insect vectors of disease and other insects. These transporters are highly conserved and are expressed in the antennal transcriptomes of all insect species examined. To identify additional genes that may contribute to olfaction in the periphery, we carried out a computational screen in Drosophila to reveal genes whose expression in the antenna is greatly enriched compared to other tissues. Importantly, we found that most orthologs of the olfaction-candidate genes are expressed in the antennae of other species, including mosquitoes, ants, bees, and beetles. These candidates will provide a foundation for future studies investigating conserved mechanisms of odor signaling." (See research by Pratyajit Mohapatra and Karen Menuz in the journal G-3)
Menuz holds a bachelor of arts degree in genetics, cellular and developmental biology and a bachelor of ats degree in biophysical chemistry, magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College (1999), Hanover, N.H. She received her doctorate in neuroscience from the University of California, San Francisco, in 2007, working with advisor Roger Nicoll. Her thesis:"In Vivo Regulation of AMPA receptors by Their TARP Auxiliary Subunits."
Community ecologist Rachel Vannette, assistant professor, is coordinating the department's seminars. All seminars begin at 4:10 p.m. on Wednesdays in 122 Briggs Hall, located off Kleiber Hall Drive.
Other seminar speakers include:
Wednesday, Jan. 15
Corrie Moreau, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Topic: "Piecing Together the Puzzle to Understand the Evolution of the Ants"
Host: Marshall McMunn, graduate student
Wednesday, Jan. 22
Sebastian Eves-van den Akker, University of Cambridge, UK
Topic: Nematology (to be announced)
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor
Wednesday, Jan. 29
Elizabeth Crone, Tufts University, Medford, Mass.
Topic: Plant-insect interactions (to be announced)
Hosts: Neal Williams, professor; Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
Wednesday, Feb. 5
Andrew Young, postdoctoral scholar at California Department of Food and Agriculture, Pest Diagnostic
Topic: Syrphids
Host: Lynn Kimsey, professor and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology
Wednesday, Feb. 12
Kevin Rice, University of Missouri, Columbia
Topic: "Lasers, Drones, and Growth Promoting Fungus: New Technologies for IPM"
Host: Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Mercedes Burns, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Topic: (pending) She studies evolutionary ecology of reproductive traits and behaviors, sexual conflict, reproductive polymorphism, arthropod biology
Host: Jason Bond, professor and Schlinger Chair in Insect Systematics
Wednesday, Feb. 26:
Faculty Flash Talks (featuring series of faculty members, including Rachel Vannette, Ian Grettenberger, Shahid Siddique, Geoffrey Attardo, Jason Bond)
Wednesday, March 4
Brendon Boudinot, doctoral candidate, Phil Ward lab, exit seminar
Topic: "Morphology and Evolution of the Insects, and the Ancestors of the Ants"
Host: Phil Ward, professor
Wednesday, March 11
Mary Salcedo, postdoctoral researcher, Virginia Tech
Topic: "Hydraulics in an Insect Wing: How Venation Pattern Affects Circulation"
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
More information on the seminars is available from Vannette at rlvannette@udavis.edu
/span>- Author: Kathy Keatley Garvey
Community ecologist Rachel Vannette, assistant professor and coordinator of the Department of Entomology and Nematology's winter quarter seminars, has announced the schedule.
All seminars will take place on Wednesdays from 4:10 to 5 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall.
Wednesday, Jan. 8
Karen Menuz, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Topic: "Molecular Basis of Insect Olfaction"
Host: Walter Leal, distinguished professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a former chair of the entomology department
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 15
Corrie Moreau, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y.
Topic: "Piecing Together the Puzzle to Understand the Evolution of the Ants"
Host: Marshall McMunn, graduate student
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 22
Sebastian Eves-van den Akker, University of Cambridge, UK
Topic: Nematology (to be announced)
Host: Shahid Siddique, assistant professor
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Jan. 29
Elizabeth Crone, Tufts University, Medford, Mass.
Topic: "Why Are Monarch Butterflies Declining in the West?"
Hosts: Neal Williams, professor; Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 5
Andrew Young, postdoctoral scholar at California Department of Food and Agriculture, Pest Diagnostic
Topic: Syrphids
Host: Lynn Kimsey, professor and director of the Bohart Museum of Entomology
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 12
Kevin Rice, University of Missouri, Columbia
Topic: "Lasers, Drones, and Growth Promoting Fungus: New Technologies for IPM"
Host: Ian Grettenberger, assistant professor
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 19
Mercedes Burns, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Topic: (pending) She studies evolutionary ecology of reproductive traits and behaviors, sexual conflict, reproductive polymorphism, arthropod biology
Host: Jason Bond, professor and Schlinger Chair in Insect Systematics
Link to seminar
Wednesday, Feb. 26:
Faculty Flash Talks (featuring series of faculty members, including Rachel Vannette, Ian Grettenberger, Shahid Siddique, Geoffrey Attardo, Jason Bond)
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, March 4
Brendon Boudinot, doctoral candidate, Phil Ward lab, exit seminar
Topic: "Morphology and Evolution of the Insects, and the Ancestors of the Ants"
Host: Phil Ward, professor
Link to Seminar
Wednesday, March 11
Mary Salcedo, postdoctoral researcher, Virginia Tech
Topic: "Hydraulics in an Insect Wing: How Venation Pattern Affects Circulation"
Host: Rachel Vannette, assistant professor
Link to seminar
For more information, contact Vannette at rlvannette@ucdavis.edu.