February 2005

Faculty News

Dr. Untaek Lim, a postdoctoral scientist in Dr. Hoy's laboratory, left 7 February for a faculty position in the School of Bioresource Sciences at the Andong National University in the Republic of Korea. Dr. Lim will teach and conduct research there. Dr. Lim obtained his Ph.D. degree at the University of Massachusetts with Dr. Roy Van Driesche.

Dr. Beth Grafton-Cardwell, of the University of California-Riverside faculty, and an expert on citrus IPM in the San Joaquin Valley of California located at the Kearney Agriculture Center in Parlier, visited several scientists in Florida during 10-12 January, including Dr. Marjorie A. Hoy in Gainesville, to discuss the control of potential pests of citrus that could invade California. Dr. Grafton-Cardwell was especially interested in Asian citrus psylla and citrus leafminer. Dr. Michael Rogers, at the Lake Alfred CREC, arranged visits with Drs. McCoy, Browning, and Duncan at CREC, and with Drs. Stansly and Mongri Zekri at the Southwest Florida REC.

The search for a new UF/IFAS Research Dean is underway and advertisements are in journals and on the web. Dr. Marjorie Hoy is on the search committee and solicits ideas for potential candidates to nominate for the position so that the executive search company can solicit their application. Your input on these candidates will be considered seriously by the committee and UF/IFAS VP Jimmy Cheek. The position description is at: http://vp.ifas.ufl.edu/vp/researchdeanannouncement.htm.

Dr. James P. Cuda was selected by the IFAS Administrative Council as one of 26 nominees to participate in the fourth LEAD IFAS Group. LEAD IFAS is a series of four in-state workshops designed to foster leadership and managerial skills. The series is intended to develop skills needed by individuals seeking to move into an administrative or leadership role as part of their career development.

Student News

The lineup for our 2005 Linnaean Team is as follows: Karla Addesso, Rodrigo Diaz, John Leavengood Jr., Leslie Rios and David Serrano. Congratulations to all of these graduate students who apparently have lots of spare time to devote to this important endeavor. Seriously, the Linnaean Team is a very time-consuming responsibility which, fortunately, is also very rewarding in many ways to its participants.

Ph.D. student Rebecca Baldwin is our department's 2005 representative to the Entomological Society of America's Southeastern Branch student affairs committee.

Frank Wessels, a graduate student in Dr. Cuda's program, was awarded a $200 IFAS Travel Grant to attend the SEB-ESA meeting in Tunica, MS, 6-9 March.

Staff News

During 14-17 January, Dr. Khuong B. Nguyen presented an invited paper on "Entomopathogenic nematodes in the United States with some taxonomic features and their potential in biological control of insects" at a meeting of the European Cooperation in the field of Scientific and Technical Research (COST) at the Institute of Entomology, Czech Academy of Science, Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic. Expenses were paid by the European Commission. After the meeting, Nguyen continued to work with institute scientists on a taxonomic project concerning new species of entomopathogenic nematodes.

Publications

Brambila J, Halbert S. 2004. First records for Dieuches armatipes (Heteroptera: Rhyparochromidae) in North America. Florida Entomologist 87: 593-596.

Serrano D. (January 2005). Leafcutting bees. UF/IFAS Featured Creatures. EENY-342. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/misc/bees/leafcutting_bees.htm

Gyeltshen J, Hodges AC, Hodges G. (February 2005). Orange spiny whitefly, Aleurocanthus spiniferus Quaintance. UF/IFAS Featured Creatures. EENY-341. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/citrus/orange_spiny_whitefly.htm

Grants

Dr. James P. Cuda was awarded a $75,000 grant from the South Florida Water Management District to continue his research program on classical biological control of Brazilian peppertree.

Meeting and Presentations

Dr. James P. Cuda attended a program planning meeting held at the UF/IFAS Center for Aquatic and Invasive Plants, 12 January. The purpose of the meeting was to develop the conference program for the Annual Aquatic Weed Control Short Course 2005 to be held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, 16-19 May. See http://conference.ifas.ufl.edu/aw/index.html.

Dr. James P. Cuda attended the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council's Board of Director's meeting held in Ft. Myers, FL, 18 January. Cuda gave a report on current activities of the Brazilian peppertree Task Force that he chairs.

Dr. James P. Cuda attend a quarterly meeting of the TAME Melaleuca Technology Transfer Team held at the UF/IFAS Biological Control and Containment Facility, IRREC, Ft. Pierce, FL, 19 January. The purpose of the meeting was to review the Melapalooza 2005 series of events that will demonstrate melaleuca IPM practices to the general public.

Dr. James P. Cuda participated in the Undergraduate Research Initiative Planning Meeting held in the department, 28 January. Other meeting attendees included Drs. Howard Frank, Michael Scharf, Pauline Lawrence, Faith Oi and Carl Barfield, who chaired the meeting. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a course that will enable entomology students to acquire practical research experience in professor's laboratories.

Dr. James P. Cuda attended the Executive Committee Meeting of the Florida Entomological Society held at the USDA-CMAVE, 1 February. Cuda currently chairs the Invasive Species Committee.

Tenure

A final report on the Senate Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Tenure was submitted and is available at: http://www.senate.ufl.edu/minut_agen/tenureReport.pdf. In December the Senate voted on the following and passed Recommendation Number Eight:

"College level tenure and promotion boards shall provide recorded individual assessments to the college deans as part of their fact finding and consultative role in the review of promotion and tenure cases. An individual assessment shall consist of a college tenure and promotion board member indicating whether or not the candidate meets the standards required for tenure and/or promotion within that college, and that assessment shall become part of the tenure and promotion packet. The individual assessors shall not be identified in the tenure and promotion packet."

Entomology Seminars

Graduate students Luis Matos, Sean McCann, Veronica Manrique and Murugesan Rangasamy are seminar coordinators. Seminars begin at 3:45 p.m. in room 1031, Entomology and Nematology (Bldg. 970). A listing of seminars is available in the January 2005 issue on the newsletter Web site at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/news/.

Bug Quote

Larva - "Many years ago it was the popular belief that the caterpillar concealed within itself the complete butterfly in perfect form. It was then thought, that is, that the caterpillar served as a mask for the butterfly. For that reason it was called larva, Latin for ‘mask.' " - from Thereby Hangs a Tale: Stories of Curious Word Origins by Charles Earle Funk

Newsletter Minutia

Thomas Fasulo is the newsletter editor. Send submissions to him at fasulo@ufl.edu. Issues are published the middle of each month. Submit items for an issue by the 7th of that month.

Printed copies are distributed only within Building 970. UF-Bugnews-l listserv subscribers receive notices when HTML and PDF copies are posted on the newsletter Web site at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/news/ , which has instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing. Tom Fasulo coded this HTML version.

During the last twelve months, the newsletter Web site recorded 32,392 distinct visitors and 59,314 page views. The newsletter listserv has 227 subscribers.

February 2005.