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Bed Bugs at the Bohart
Indeed. Those attending the Bohart Museum of Entomology's open house on Saturday, Feb. 2, will see them--and see them feeding.
The Bohart Museum of Entomology is one of six museums or educational centers on the UC Davis campus holding an open house from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. This is the second annual campuswide Biodiversity Museum Day, aka "Super Science Saturday," as it's the day before the Super Bowl. The other five are the Botanical Conservatory, Center for Plant Diversity, the Geology Museum, the Anthropology Museum, and the Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology. Maps will be available at each site. The event is free and open to the public.
Now, back to the bed bugs.
Danielle Wishon, an undergraduate student majoring in entomology, will be feeding her bed bug colony at 2 p.m. at the Bohart Museum, which is located in 1124 Academic Surge on Crocker Lane. Wishon is rearing a colony, now approaching 100 bed bugs, in a research lab in Briggs Hall.
"Aside from the fact that I find them visually adorable, I am interested in the current public panic over their current increase in population around the United States," said Wishon, who took control of the colony in October 2012. "The idea that several little animals will crawl up to you while you sleep and feed on your blood really disturbs most people, despite the fact that they do not transmit any disease."
Wishon, who studies with forensic entomologist Robert Kimsey and works in the Bohart Museum with director Lynn Kimsey, professor of entomology, loves entomology. She's is a past president of the UC Davis Entomology Club and recipient of the department’s 2011 Outstanding Undergraduate Student Award.
"I think the general public would be very interested to see them feeding," Wishon said. "There is a lot of misinformation on the Internet about them, so it would also be a good opportunity for Q and A."
And speaking of Q and A, be sure to access the Entomological Society of America's bed bug resource page. You'll find information on "the menace in the mattress" (Cimex lectularlu) from all over the country, including right here at UC Davis. The UC Statewide Integrated Pest Management Program's Pest Note says:
"A single feeding may take up to 10 minutes, and feels like a pin prick, but because feeding usually occurs at night when people are asleep they are not aware they have been bitten until afterwards. However, saliva injected during the feeding can later produce large swellings on the skin that itch and may become irritated and infected when scratched. Swelling may not develop until a day or more after feeding, and some people do not show symptoms. Bed bugs currently are not considered to be disease carriers."
The arm of Danielle Wishon and her bedbugs, feeding.
Close-up of a bedbug in the process of ingesting a blood meal. (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control for Prevention, image by Piotr Naskrecki)
Our Man (Entomologist) in Washington
Make that several years.
Zalom, who just completed a year as the vice president-elect of the 6000-member Entomological Society of America (ESA), was installed as vice president of the organization at its meeting last month in Knoxville, Tenn. and is in line for the presidency.
So, his ESA commitment totals four years: first as vice president-elect, then as the vice president, then as president, and finally, past president. Each is a one-year term.
ESA, founded in 1889 and now headquartered in Lanham, Md., a suburb of Washington, D.C., draws members from all over the world. They're primarily in educational institutions, health agencies, private industry and government.
Zalom will be the second UC Davis entomologist to serve as ESA president. The first was Donald McLean, who held the top ESA office in 1986. Now an emeritus professor, McLean chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology from 1974 to 1979 and served as dean of the Division of Biological Sciences from 1979 to 1986.
As ESA's new VP, Frank Zalom is already assuming a myriad of duties. He participated in the 2012 Council of Scientific Society Presidents (CSSP) conference held Dec. 8-10 in Washington, D.C.
ESA president Robert Wiedenmann, professor and head of the University of Arkansas Department of Entomology, and Zalom represented ESA at the meeting. The Council membership is comprised of presidents, presidents-elect and recent past presidents representing some 60 scientific federations and societies. The combined membership totals more than 1.4 million scientists and science educators.
Among the many speakers were Paula Apsell, senior executive producer of NOVA-TV, who led a discussion on “Building Pubic Appreciation for Science”; Ian Shipsey, physics professor at Purdue University, who spoke on “Higgs Boson: How It Imparts Mass”; Lori Garver of NASA, “Mars and Beyond—Exploring the Endless Frontiers”; and Millie Dresselhaus, professor, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Nanoscale Carbon Electron-Phonon Interaction.” Charles Vest, president of the National Academy of Engineering, keynoted the awards banquet on Dec. 9.
The CSSP contingent also met for a breakfast on Capitol Hill, interacting with congressional leaders, including chiefs of staff and senators.
According to a CSSP brochure, “The Council regularly develops national policy coordination recommended by its committees on issues of importance to the scientific community.”
Among those issues are science and mathematics education; university-based research; federal research and education budget; responsible conduct of science; merit review of federally supported science; unimpeded exchange of scientific information; magnifying public science literary; research on teaching and learning; and directions for 21st century science.
Now the ESA governing board is gearing up for its 61st annual meeting, set Nov. 10-13, 2013 (initially set for Nov. 17-20) in Austin, Texas. Also on the governing board from UC Davis is Michael Parrella, professor and chair of the Department of Entomology, who represents the ESA's Pacific Branch.
Theme of the 61st annual meeting? “Science Impacting a Connected World.”
ESA vice president Frank Zalom (far right) of UC Davis with ESA president Robert Wiedenmann (far left) of the University of Arkansas, and Sonny Ramaswamy, director of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA). (Photo courtesy of ESA)
Amazing Project
UC Davis entomology graduate student Kevin Rayne Cloonan not only won a coveted award for his research presentation at the 60th meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Knoxville, Tenn., but it may prove to be a boon to California almond growers.
Cloonan, who is studying for his master’s degree with chemical ecologist Walter Leal, professor of entomology, won a second-place award for his insect repellent research on the navel orangeworm (NOW), a major pest of California’s almond industry.
His talk was part of the 10-minute graduate student presentations.
Cloonan presented his paper on “Potential Oviposition Repellent for the Navel Orangeworm (Amyelois transitella) in Almond Orchards of Central California.” For his research, he tested 20 broad spectrum insect repellents as potential oviposition repellents. Bedoukian Research Inc. developed the repellents.
Cloonan's work involved electrophysiological recordings, laboratory behavioral assays, and a field behavioral assay. He first used electroantennogram (EAG) assays to identify which of those 20 repellents the female antennae could detect. Of the 20 repellents, three showed significant EAG responses, he said.
In testing the oviposition repellency under laboratory conditions with laboratory populations, he found that two of the three repellents showed significantly reduced oviposition; they were then tested with field populations in almond orchards in Arbuckle.
“One especially looks very promising,” said Cloonan, adding “I couldn’t have done this research without the support and help of Dr. Leal and everyone in the Leal lab.”
Cloonan has been asked to present a poster at the Almond Board of California conference, to be held Dec. 11-13 at the Sacramento Convention Center.
At the ESA meeting, Cloonan’s presentation was one of 14 vying for top honors in the Plant-Insect Ecosytems (P-IE) Section. The P-IE Section includes behavioral, ecological, and evolutionary relationships in natural landscapes, as well as integrated pest management (IPM) in agriculture, horticulture, forests, and lawn and garden. The section also deals with aspects of crop protection, host-plant response, plant pathology/vectors, pollination, biological control, microbial control, and others.
Cloonan, who plans to pursue his doctorate in entomology, is a graduate of the University of Idaho, with a bachelor's degree in entomology.
Almonds are big business in California and getting bigger.
The National Agricultural Statistics Service forecasts California’s 2012 almond crop at a record-breaking 2.10 billion meat pounds, valued at approximately $3 billion. Eighty-percent of the global supply of almonds is grown in California, and about 70 percent of California’s crop is marketed overseas.
Honey bees from all over the country are trucked to California to pollinate the state’s 780,000 acres of almonds, which begin blooming in mid-February, around Valentine's Day. Two bee colonies are required to pollinate each acre--and that's a lot of bees!
Navel orangeworms lay their eggs in almonds, pistachios and walnuts, with the resulting caterpillars (larvae) causing major damage. This is an adult on a pistachio. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Turning a Page in Entomological History
The ESA Governing Board today announced the new fellows, who will be recognized Nov. 11, 2012 at the ESA’s annual meeting in Knoxville, Tenn.
Page, the vice provost and dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, since July 2011, is a pioneer in the field of evolutionary genetics and the social behavior of honey bees.
Page did much of his research at UC Davis. He received his doctorate in entomology at UC Davis in 1980, learning from his major professor Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (for whom the UC Davis bee research facility is named). He then joined The Ohio State University faculty before returning to UC Davis as a faculty member in 1989.
He chaired the UC Davis Department of Entomology from 1999 to 2004.
Page, who studies the evolution of complex social behavior in honey bees, from genes to societies, left UC Davis in 2004 to be the founding director of the new School of Life Sciences. Arizona State University, where he built a Social Insect Research Group that is now recognized worldwide.
Page was trained as an entomologist, evolutionary population geneticist, classical animal breeder, and mechanistic behaviorist, according to a news release issued by the ESA. "This training has defined his research approach of looking at the genetics and evolution of complex social behavior. He has taken a vertical approach to understanding the mechanisms of honey bee social foraging and how it evolves."
His work is contained in more than 225 research articles. Page has also co-edited three books and authored or co-authored two. Page is a highly cited ISI (Institute for Scientific Information) author in plant and animal science. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the German National Academy of Science, and the Brazilian Academy of Science. In 1995 he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Research Prize by the government of Germany.
Although Page resides in Arizona, his research bees are UC Davis-based residents. Bee breeder-geneticist Michael “Kim” Fondrk, who worked with Page at Ohio State University, UC Davis and ASU, manages the specialized genetic stock, which today includes 90 hives.
Of the 90 hives, about 70 have instrumentally inseminated queens as part of their pollen-hoarding breeding research program.
Back in 2006, Page told us: "Davis is still home to me. I raised my family there, my closest friends and colleagues are still in the entomology department there. I still feel very strong attachments.”
Former department chair Robert Washino remembers him fondly. He recently recalled that "Rob chose to return to UC Davis in 1989 to be with his former major professor (Harry H. Laidlaw Jr.). He later cared for him and his wife, Ruth, in their declining years. We all remember Rob’s scholarly side and his humanitarian side.”
Page joins three other UC-affiliated entomologists in the ESA Fellows Class of 2012: Joseph Morse, professor of entomology at UC Riverside; Henry H. Hagedorn, who received his doctorate in entomology from UC Davis in 1970; and R. Michael Roe, who trained at the UC Davis Department of Entomology from 1981 to 1984 as a National Institutes of Health fellow in cellular and molecular biology.
And interestingly enough, Page is following in the footsteps of Harry H. Laidlaw Jr., who himself was elected an ESA fellow in 1991.
With the addition of Page, the UC Davis Department of Entomology now has 16 fellows who are current or former faculty members. The first was Richard M. Bohart (1913-2007), for whom the Bohart Museum of Entomology is named. He received the honor in 1947. Fifteen others followed: Donald McLean, elected in 1990; Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. (1907-2003), 1991; John Edman, 1994; Robert Washino, 1996; Bruce Eldridge, 2001; William Reisen, 2003; Harry Kaya, 2007; Michael Parrella and Frank Zalom, 2008; Walter Leal, 2009; Bruce Hammock and Thomas Scott, 2010; James R. Carey and Diane Ullman, 2011, and now Robert E. Page Jr., 2012.
Bee breeder-geneticist Kim Fondrk of UC Davis manages the Robert Page specialized genetic stock. These bee hives were in a Dixon almond orchard. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
Little Bug, Big Problem
There's a good reason why they're called "the menace in the mattress." The mattress is one of their hiding spots.
They? Bed bugs. Parasites that feed on human blood.
"Bed bug infestations are rampant locally, nationally and globally," says Tanya Drlik, integrated pest management (IPM) coordinator of Contra Costa County who will speak at the May 3rd meeting of the Northern California Entomology Society, to be held in the Harry H. Laidlaw Jr. Honey Bee Research Facility on Bee Biology Road, UC Davis.
“We’ve had a reprieve from bed bugs for about 50 years, but now they’re back,” said Drlik, who will discuss “The Resurgence of Bed Bugs and Current Effective Control Methods” at 9:45 a.m. in the Laidlaw conference room.
The society (membership is open to everyone) will meet from 9:15 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Drlik is one of five speakers on topics ranging from bed bugs to lacewings to endangered species.
Drlik, who formed the Bed Bug Task Force to help prepare Contra Costa County to meet the challenges of the mounting bed bug infestation, says that bed bugs “have no regard for wealth or class—everyone is vulnerable. Bed bugs can be found all across the country in apartment buildings, hotels and motels, private residences, hospitals, waiting rooms, fire station, taxis and buses…and the list goes on. They’ve infested four-star hotels and penthouses as well as homeless shelters and rundown apartment buildings.”
“Judging by history and the experience of other jurisdictions across the country, the problem is only going to increase, and more and more public buildings and homes will experience infestations,” said Drlik, who has a master’s degree in ecosystem management and nearly 40 years of experience in the field of IPM.
“Bed bugs are difficult to control because of their small size, their secretive nature and their growing resistance to the pesticides we have at our disposal. Poverty, clutter, and poor housekeeping do not cause bed bug infestations, but they make eliminating infestations much more difficult.”
Bed bugs “can be seen in epidemic proportions in some areas of the United States, including New York City and central and southwestern Ohio,” said Drlik, adding that since 2004, New York City has experienced a 2277 percent increase in complaints about bed bugs in the five boroughs (source: New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development). “Colleagues in the Franklin County Health Department in central Ohio have commented to us that they were completely unprepared for the rapidity with which bed bugs spread throughout their county.”
Other topics at the Nor Cal Entomology Society meeting include:
- “Protecting Invertebrates Listed as Threatened or Endangered Species in California” by Darlene McGriff, California Natural Diversity Database (California Department of Fish and Game).
- “California Forest Insect Conditions Going into 2012” by Cynthia Snyder, U.S. Forest Service, Shasta-McCloud Management Unit.
- “PG&E’s Use of Safe Harbor Agreements and Programmatic Permits to Protect Endangered Organisms on Utility Rights of Way” by Peter Beesley, PG&E.
- “In-Depth Look at Lacewings, an Augmentative California Biological Control Agent” by Shaun Winterton, California Department of Food and Agriculture Biological Control Program.
All great topics, to be sure. Bed bugs, however, are the big draw, in more ways than one.
We remember an Entomological Society of America (ESA) seminar on these bloodsuckers that resulted in a flurry of inspections back in the hotel rooms: mattress, baseboard, furniture, closet and luggage checks.
For excellent bed bug resources, check out the ESA website. And for more information on the Nor Cal Entomology Society meeting, see the UC Davis Department of Entomology website.
Bed bug, Cimex lectularius, shown here ingesting a blood meal from the arm of a “voluntary” human host, is wreaking havoc locally, nationally and globally. (Photo by Piotr Naskrecki, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the Wikipedia website.)
This bed bug drew a lot of attention at a UC Davis Department of Entomology display during the campuswide Picnic Day. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)
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