ENTOMOLOGY and NEMATOLOGY NEWS
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December 14th, 2015

holidays

ABOVE: We hope you all have a safe and happy winter break. Do not forget our offices will be closed starting December 25th and we will reopen on January 4th, 2016!

 

Faculty and Staff News

Dr. Christine W. Miller has been awarded a 5-year NSF CAREER Award for $822,000. "The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research."

Dr. James P. Cuda and Dr. William A. Overholt were featured in an article by IFAS Senior Vice President Dr. Jack Payne that was published in the Central Florida AgNews.

Class participants

ABOVE: Dr. James P. Cuda was invited to participate in a UF/IFAS Weed Science Summit held on campus on 18 November. The purpose of the Summit that was organized by Dr. Jason Ferrell, Agronomy Department, was to improve communication across programs at UF and the RECs.  

Dr. James P. Cuda was invited to attend a luncheon and presentation on developing future leaders and solving global challenges by Ms. Betty Castor that was held at Ustler Hall, 19 November. Ms. Castor, who is a former state senator and cabinet member, is the current Chair of the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board. 

Dr. Jacqueline Y. Miller was elected as an ESA Honorary Life Member and received a plaque during the ESA Plenary Session at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, which took place November 15-18 in Minneapolis.

Student and Alumni News

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Dr. Thomas C. Emmel and Jade Aster T. Badon along with other 17 participants went on an expedition to the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador from November 28 to December 7, 2015. They found several insects on the islands during the trip such as Darwin’s carpenter bee (Xylopcopa darwini), the cloudless sulphur (Phoebis sennae), the endemic Galapagos blue (Leptodes parrhasiodes), and the endemic Galapagos Gulf fritillary (Argaulis vanilla galapagensis). These are some of the insects that are pollinators of plants in the islands. Currently, there are 13 recorded species of butterflies and about 130 moths species present in the Galapagos Islands. There are also invasive species in the islands such as predatory wasps and scale insects.

We would like to congratulate our 2015 Entomology and Nematology Undergraduate Scholarship Recipients. These students are majors and minors in Entomology and have contributed scholarship, leadership and service to our department.

Katherine Carroll, Andrew Nisip, Johanna  Schwartz, Tyler Shaw, Zachary Kaplan, Alex LoCastro, Grayson McWhorter, Mason Russo, WinDi Sanchez, Gabriella Steele, Andre Szejner Sigal, Sage Thompson, Evan Waite, Paige Carlson, Natalie Grand'Bois, Gabriella Milanes, Sarah Nguyentran, Nicole Ormaza, Morgan Weldon, Katherine Arguez, Stefani Harrison, Mary Karcher, Jennifer Serviss, Rachel Watson, Megan Bernier, Johnalyn Gordon, Joshua Hildebrandt, Shari Linn, Cindy Sigler, Gabriel Somarriba, and Samuel Pass.

Ms. Rachel Watson, an undergraduate OPS Student in the laboratory of Dr. James P. Cuda, was the recipient of an Everett Mitchell Entomology Department Scholarship for her leadership and service to the department.

Congratulations to Florida Mosquito Control Association Scholarship winners: The T W Miller Scholarship was awarded to Catherine Pruszynski, and the Cyrus Lesser Memorial Scholarship awarded to Casey Parker. Each student will receive $2,000 towards their education.

David Owens, a Ph.D. student with Dr. Gregg Nuessly, won 2nd place in the PIE-Insecticide A subsection at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, which took place November 15-18 in Minneapolis, for his talk “Insecticide Bioassays Against Florida’s Most Destructive Sweet Corn Pests.”

We had five other UF students place in the ESA student competition. Here are the other five award winners: David Plotkin, Dale Halbritter, Michael Bentley, Denis Willett, and Xulin Chen. At the same meeting our Linnaean team placed second in the nation!

Lab News

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Need to name that bug? A host of experts are available to help Floridians identify any insect or related arthropod. If a mystery creature has six or more legs, the UF Insect ID Lab is the place to call.

tapeworms

 

ABOVE: Pet owners may be interested in this sample that Lyle received in November. A homeowner with a couple of cats kept finding these particles that resembled small sesame seeds. They were especially abundant in places where the cats liked to hang out. The problem turned out to be the dog tapeworm, Dipylidium caninum. The tapeworm lives in the small intestine of dogs and cats, and as the end segments of the tapeworm mature, they break off and crawl out through the anus of the animal. Tapeworms are not usually a serious health problem for pets, and are easily treated by a veterinarian.

Lyle Buss is the UF/IFAS Insect ID Lab manager.

Think it might be a nematode problem? The Nematode Assay Laboratory serves Florida and other states by providing nematode assays and expert advice regarding nematode management.

For more information on the Nematode Assay Laboratory, please contact lab managerDr. Tesfa Mengistu.

Publications

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Branham MA. 2015. Beetles (Coleoptera) of Peru: A survey of the families. Lampyridae. Journal of the Kansas Entomological Society 88(2): 248-250.

Cao R, Su N-Y. 2015. Temperature preferences of four subterranean termite species (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) and temperature-dependent survivorship and wood-consumption rateAnnals of the Entomological Society of America doi: 10.1093/aesa/sav095

Chouvenc T, Li H-F, Austin JW, Bordereau C, Bourguignon T, Cameron SL, Cancello EM, Constantino R, Costa-Leonardo AM, Eggleton P, Evans TA, Forschler B, Grace JK, Husseneder C, Křeček J, Lee C-Y, Lee T, Lo N, Messenger M, Mullins A, Robert A, Roisin Y, Scheffrahn RH, Sillam-Dussès D, Šobotník J, Szalanski A, Takematsu Y, Vargo EL, Yamada EL, Yoshimura T, Su NY. 2015. Revisiting Coptotermes(Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae): a global taxonomic roadmap for species validity and distribution of an economically important subterranean termite genus. Systematic Entomology  DOI: 10.1111/syen.12157

Chouvenc T, Mullins AJ, Su N-Y. 2015. Rare production of nymphs in an Asian subterranean termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) incipient colony. Florida Entomologist 98: 972-973.

Chouvenc T, N-Y Su. 2015. How do entomologists consume and produce their science? American Entomologist 61(4): 252-257.

Cottone C, Su N-Y, Scheffrahn RH, Riegel C. 2015. Survivorship of the Formosan subterranean termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) in a hypoxic environment. Sociobiology 62: 76-81.

Cuda JP. 2015. Novel approaches for reversible field releases of candidate weed biological control agents:  Putting the genie back into the bottle, Chapter 7, pp. 137-152.  In: JF Shroder and R Sivanpillai (eds.), Biological and Environmental Hazards, Risks and Disasters. Elsevier, Inc., Amsterdam. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-394847-2.00010-3

Dara SK, Barringer L, Arthurs SP. 2015. Lycorma delicatula (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae): A new invasive pest in the United States. Journal of Integrated Pest Management 6(1): 20; DOI: 10.1093/jipm/pmv021

Gillett-Kaufman JL, Allan SA, Buss LJ. 2015. Manduca rustica (Lepidoptera: Sphingidae) damage on olive (Olea europaea; Lamiales: Oleaceae) trees in Florida. Florida Entomologist 98(4): 1272-1273.

Li H-F, Lan Y-C, Fujisaki I, Kanzaki N, Lee H-J, Su N-Y. 2015. Termite assemblage pattern and niche partitioning in a tropical forest ecosystem. Environmental Entomology DOI: 10.1093/ee/nvv038 

Martini X, Guvvala H, Nansen C. 2015. The search strategy by omnivorous thrips larvae is influenced by spider mite cues. Journal of Insect Behavior 28: 593-603.

Mullins AJ, Messenger MT, Hochmair HH, Tonini F, S N-Y, Riegel C. 2015. Dispersal flights of the Formosan subterranean termite (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) Journal of Economic Entomology 108: 707-719.

Scheffrahn RH, Carrijo TF, Křeček J, Su N-Y, Szalanski AL, Austin JW, Mangold JR. 2015. A single endemic and three exotic species of the termite genus Coptotermes (Isoptera, Rhinotermitidae) in the New World. Arthropod Systematics & Phylogeny 73: 333-348.

Su N-Y. 2015. Current state of the Florida Entomological Society-2014 FES Presidential Address. Florida Entomologist 98: 815-817.

Tian J, Diao H, Liang L, Arthurs S, Ma R. 2015. Pathogenicity of Isaria fumosorosea to Bemisia tabaci, with some observations on the fungal infection process. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 130: 147-153.

New on Featured Creatures:

Polistes carolina (L.), a paper wasp. Authors: Lizzie Paulus and Andrea Lucky, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida.

Atala butterfly, Eumaeus atala Poey. Authors: Sandy Koi, and Donald W. Hall, Entomology and Nematology Department, University of Florida

Do you have a favorite creature? Learn how to make it into a Featured Creatures!

Meetings and Presentations

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The University of Florida School of Structural Fumigation was held at the Ft. Lauderdale REC. November 16-20, 2015. The annual "Fume School" provides classroom, laboratory, and field training for pest control professionals who wish to supervise or conduct fumigations of buildings and goods against various pest infestations. This is the only school of its kind in the world, and the school’s 27th anniversary had a record attendance of 61 students (below).  

fune school class

ABOVE: This year’s class included students from Florida, Arizona, California, Maryland, Massachusetts, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Is. as well as Aruba, Australia, Cayman Islands, and The Bahamas. The school yielded an 86% passing rate for students who opted to take the Florida State certification exams in fumigation. Dr. Rudi Scheffrahn and Dr. Bill Kern have coordinated the Fume School at FLREC for the past 12 years.

"Firefly fossils: Their diversity and contributions to understanding the evolution of the family Lampyridae." M. Branham. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

"Exploring the phylogenetic placement of the firefly genus Robopus Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)." O. Keller and M.A. Branham. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

“Phylogeny of the cantharophilous rhinoceros beetle tribe Cyclocephalini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae:Dynastinae) based on adult morphology. M. Moore, R. Cave and M.A. Branham. Entomological Society of America Annual Meeting, Minneapolis, MN.

Dr. James P. Cuda attended the 16th Annual CALS Teaching Enhancement Symposium held at the UF Hilton Conference Center, 18 August.  

Dr. James P. Cuda participated in the UF/IFAS Extension Specialist Symposium/Retreat, "Preparing for the Future of Extension: Collaboration and Innovation" held at the Straughn IFAS Extension Professional Development Center 18-19 August.

 

Outreach

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From the Outreach Coordinator

A big thank you to the students and faculty who volunteered for our November outreach events.

  • 2 November- Irby Elementary- Erin Powell
  • 6 November- Bronson Middle and High School Career Day- Evan Waite, Erin Powell
  • 7 November- Bug Zoo at The Swamp for Vanderbilt Homecoming Game- Andre Szejner, Rachel Watson, Evan Waite, Dr. Rebecca Baldwin, Erin Powell
  • 11-15 November- Ocali Country Days- Dr. Joe Cicero, Evan Waite, Rachel Watson, Chris Holderman, Paul Joseph, Lauren Cirino,  Michael Gonzalez, Sage Thompson, Lindsay Wheeler, Brian Ertley
  • 21 November- Camp Shands Boy Scout Event- Matt Moore, Erin Powell
  • 30 November- Homeschool group tour- Erin Powell

 

Paul with a friend
ABOVE:
Paul Joseph holds the giant African millipede at Ocali Country Days. Photograph by Chris Holderman.

The live critters are always a hit with children and adults alike. The critters are available for you to check out should you be leading an outreach event. We have doubles of our most popular critters, as well as various native insect species depending on the time of year. We have large wood and Plexiglas cages for viewing our native orb weaving spiders. There is one travel cage and one larger static cage. Please be sure to contact us and review the protocol on transporting and handling the critters if you are not already familiar with it. If you lead an outreach, be sure to fill out a documentation form so your event can be included in the newsletter and we can log all outreach events.

If you have any questions, please email me.

Thank you — Erin Powell, Outreach Coordinator.

If you would like to schedule an event or have any outreach questions, go to the Outreach pages on our Bug Club website and contact us.

Getting social!

We have several social media sites for the Entomology & Nematology Department. To make them easily searchable, all three (YouTube, Facebook and Twitter) have the same page name: UFEntomology. Please share these links with past students or colleagues who may have an interest in departmental activities.

Grants

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Virni Mattson, our grants specialist, will report on November and December grants in January!

Announcements

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We hope you all have a safe and happy winter break. Do not forget our offices will be closed starting December 25th and we will reopen on January 4th, 2016!

 

About this Newsletter

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Dr. Jennifer Gillett-Kaufman is the newsletter editor and does the HTML coding. Issues usually are published by mid-month. Submit items for an issue by the seventh of that month.

We like to share news when it happens using our social media outlets: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Follow us on these sites for daily updates! When you send news, we will post it on one or more of these sites and again in the monthly newsletter. Please be sure you have permission from people in photographs you submit for publication.

UF-Bugnews-L listserv subscribers receive notices when issues are posted. Our home page has instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing.

Special thanks to Haleigh Ray and Nancy Sanders, who reviewed the newsletter for errors, and to Jane Medley and Don Wasik, who built the web page design.