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Winter Wonderland of Seminars
Assistant professors Louie Yang and Joanna Chiu have just announced the UC Davis Department of Entomology's list of seminar speakers for the winter quarter.
And what a list it is!
It's a winter wonderland of speakers. And the good news is, most will be webcast and then posted on UCTV, compliments of a project led by professor James R. Carey of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
The seminars begin Wednesday, Jan. 11 and will continue every Wednesday through March 21. All will be held from 12:10 to 1 p.m. in 122 Briggs Hall, Klieber Hall Lane.
One subject that's sure to attract a lot of attention: pollen and pollinators. We're looking forward to hearing T’ai Roulston, research associate professor and curator, State Arboretum of Virginia, speak Feb. 1 on "Pollen as a Resource for Pollinators: What Governs Quality?"
In fact, we're looking forward to all of the speakers!
Here's the line-up:
Jan. 11: Denise Ferkey, assistant professor, State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, will speak on "Regulation of Chemosensory Signaling in C. elegans."
Hosts: Valerie Williamson, professor of nematology, and Ed Lewis, professor of nematology and entomology and acting chair of the UC Davis Department of Entomology.
Jan. 18: Anurag Agrawal, professor of ecology at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., will speak on "Evolutionary Ecology of Plant Defenses."
Host: Andrew Merwin of the Michael Parrella lab.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Jan. 25: Mary Louise Flint, Cooperative Extension specialist and associate director for Urban and Community IPM, UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program, will speak on "Educating the Urban Public about Insect Pests and their Management."
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Feb. 1: T’ai Roulston, research associate professor and curator, State Arboretum of Virginia, will speak on "Pollen as a Resource for Pollinators: What Governs Quality?"
Host: Neal Williams, assistant professor of entomology.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Feb. 8: Damian Elias, assistant professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, will speak on "Multimodal Communication in Jumping Spiders."
Host: Leslie Saul of the Neal Williams lab.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Feb. 15: Jamesina J. Scott, district manager and research director, Lake County Vector Control District, will speak on "Aedes japonicus -- Tracking an Invasive Mosquito We Knew Very Little About."
Host: Brittany Mills of the William Reisen lab.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Feb. 22: Jennifer Thaler, associate professor, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., will speak on "Tri-Trophic Plant-Insect Interactions in Solanaceous Plants."
Host: Billy Krimmel of the Jay Rosenheim lab
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Feb. 29: Jay Rosenheim, professor of entomology at UC Davis, will speak on "Insect Ecology in Natural and Agricultural Systems."
Host: Kelly Hamby of the Frank Zalom lab.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
March 7: Candice Stafford, graduate student researcher in the Diane Ullman lab, will speak on "A Virus at the Helm: Infection with Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus Modifies Thrips Feeding Behavior."
Host: Diane Ullman, professor of entomology and associate dean for undergraduate academic programs in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
March 14: Ulrich Mueller, W. M. Wheeler Lost-Pines Professor of Integrative Biology, University of Texas, Austin, will speak on "Ant-Microbe Interaction and Evolution."
Host: Marek Borowiec of the Phil Ward lab.
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
March 21: Stephen Welter, professor, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, UC Berkeley, and associate dean of instruction and student affairs, will speak on "Pheromone Mating Disruption Systems for Management of Insects in Perennial Crops: New Successes with Old Problems."
Host: Steve Seybold, UC Davis Department of Entomology affiliate
To be webcast and posted on UCTV
Pollen packin' honey bee (red pollen from rock purslane) nectaring on lavender. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Honey bee covered with blue pollen from bird's eyes (Gilia tricolor). (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Because They Care
It's not just future entomologists who study insects. So do future physicians, veterinarians, chemists, ecologists and scores of others.
Indeed, insects are involved in many biological fields, including genetics and molecular biology; biochemistry and physiology; cell biology; population biology; behavior and ecology; biodiversity and evolutionary ecology; and agroecology.
At UC Davis, a trio from the Department of Entomology faculty wants to make a difference in college students' education. They've formed a campuswide Undergraduate Honors Research Program in Insect Biology to help undergraduates obtain long-term mentoring and research experiences.
Veteran professor Jay Rosenheim and newer faculty members Louie Yang and Joanna Chiu said they want to "provide academically strong and highly motivated undergraduates with a multi-year research experience that cultivates skills that will prepare them for a career in biological research. This will be useful for students whose career goals will take them to medical school, veterinary school, or graduate programs in any biological sub-discipline.”
UC Davis freshmen and sophomores interested in applying for the program must do so by May 15 by sending an email to Elvira Hack (eghack@ucdavis.edu). In a one-page letter, they will explain their motivation to join the program, and their special interests. Selected students will then be interviewed.
The gist of the program:
- During an initial academic retreat (at the Sagehen Creek Field Station in the Sierra Nevada mountains), faculty will instruct students about the process of science, approaches to choosing research questions, and the core elements of experimental design.
- Students will be placed in a faculty mentor’s laboratory. The goal: to find a strong match between the student’s research interests and the research focus of the mentoring faculty member’s lab.
- Students will be encouraged to take supporting coursework in insect biology (that is, general entomology, insect physiology, insect ecology) to provide the most relevant foundational information for conducting research in insect biology.
- For many participating students, it’s expected that there will be a natural transition from paid positions (when the students are contributing to a larger research effort) to course credits (when the students are pursuing their own independent research).
- Students will receive ongoing training and career guidance in conducting research, scientific writing, presentation of research results at professional scientific meetings, and all aspects of preparing applications for graduate or professional schools.
We applaud the work that Rosenheim, Yang and Chiu are doing, and the 30-some members of the mentoring faculty.
Rosenheim, who joined the UC Davis Department of Entomology faculty in 1990, has long supported the academic and research needs of students. In fact, on May 11, he will receive a UC Davis Distinguished Teaching Award for Undergraduate Teaching. Faculty and students consider him "an extraordinary educator, a remarkable scholar and a superb teacher and mentor."
The ultimate compliment, however, came from an unsolicited comment on the web: “the best teacher at (UC) Davis. Hands down. Take him if you can.”
Lygus bug (Lygus herperus) could be one of the insects studied in the honors program. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Fruit Fly Research: Link to Human Sleep Disorders
If you're suffering from a sleep disorder, then you'll want to know the kind of research that molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu of the UC Davis Department of Entomology is doing--with fruit flies.
The research may one day lead to alleviating your sleep disorder.
Chiu and two of her former colleagues at Rutgers just published groundbreaking research in the journal Cell. They identified a new mechanism that slows down or speeds up the internal clock of fruit flies.
By mutating one amino acid in a single protein, "we changed the speed of the internal clock and flies now ‘think' it is 16 hours a day instead of 24 hours a day," said Chiu, an assistant professor of entomology.
"Our goal, of course, is not to trick flies into thinking the day is shorter or longer, but to dissect this complex phospho-circuit (phosphorylation sites) that controls clock speed in metazoans."
Their work, involving the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, was funded by the National Institutes of Health.
The world of circadian clocks is a complex one. "Living organisms-plants, animals and even bacteria-have an internal clock or timer that helps them to determine the time of day," Chiu said. "This internal clock is vital to their survival since it allows them to synchronize their activity to the natural environment, so that they can perform necessary tasks at biologically advantageous times of day."
"A functional clock is required to generate proper circadian rhythms of physiology and behavior including the sleep-wake cycle, daily hormonal variations and mating rhythms," Chiu said.
Read more about her research on the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
The fruit fly, small in size--about 1/8th inch long--stands tall as a prized tool for genetic research and developmental studies.
Indeed, the red-eyed fly is a "golden bug.”
Molecular geneticist Joanna Chiu at work in her lab at UC Davis. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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