Posts Tagged: Paine
Timothy Paine to Present Leigh Distinguished Alumni Seminar
DAVIS--Professor Timothy Paine of UC Riverside will present the Thomas and Nina Leigh Distinguished...
Timothy Paine in his UC Riverside lab. He will deliver the Leigh Distinguished Alumni Seminar at UC Davis on Dec. 2. (Photo by L. Duka, UC Riverside)
Is California eucalyptus the target of biological terrorism?
"You can find alternative explanations for all of this, no question about it," Paine said. "This is something we think is likely to have happened, but we don't have a smoking gun."
Paine's suspicions were raised by introductions of 16 eucalyptus pests over the past 25 years. The pests were introduced a few at a time in batches from different regions Down Under.
"They would be from Queensland, or they would be from New South Wales, or South Australia," he says.
The demise of eucalyptus in California, where they aren't native species, isn't Paine's greatest worry.
"But if you're talking about a major food crop, or a disease organism, the prospects are very, very disturbing," he said.
Mountain pine beetle turns trees into firewood
Tim Paine, professor in the UC Riverside Department of Entomology, discussed wood-boring beetles and wildfires during a six-minute interview on The Madeleine Brand Show, which is broadcast on KPCC, Southern California's public radio affiliate.
"It has killed large numbers of trees in the whole range. in some places upwards of 90 percent of the trees are killed by the beetle. Its devastating," Paine said. "You see vast areas of gray ghosts of trees."
Mountain pine beetles bore through the outer bark of the tree and construct their feeding galleries underneath the bark, disrupting water movement through the tree and killing the tree in the process.
Paine said global climate change appears to be extending the mountain pine beetle's range.
"Apparently, in the higher elevations of the Rocky Mountains, temperatures warmed enough that the beetles are advancing up into higher elevations where they weren't before," Paine said.
Though beetles and fire are part of forests' natural eco-system for millennia, the landscape has been changed by long periods of human fire exclusion. Now, when these areas do burn, the fires are more intense than they would have been otherwise.
/span>Paine named EIPD strategic initiative leader
We are pleased to announce that Tim Paine has agreed to succeed Ian Gardner as leader of the Endemic and Invasive Pests and Diseases Strategic Initiative. Paine, a UC Riverside professor of entomology, served as ANR program leader for Agricultural Policy and Pest Management from 2005 to 2009. Paine’s research focuses on improving integrated pest management of insects affecting woody ornamental plants. As EIPD strategic initiative leader, he will serve on Program Council as well as lead development and implementation of the EIPD strategic plan.
Paine and Gardner will be working together on the strategic initiative for a smooth transition before Gardner leaves ANR in June. Gardner has accepted a position at University of Prince Edward Island as Canada Excellence Research Chair in Aquatic Epidemiology.
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This announcement is also posted and archived on the ANR Update pages.