February 2007

Faculty News

Dr. Catharine Mannion is seeking a Post Doctoral Associate in entomology with an emphasis in biological control. Although UF is the employer, the position will be located at the USDA Subtropical Horticulture Research Station in Miami, FL. The position announcement is open until 1 April 2007. View details on the TREC Web site at http://trec.ifas.ufl.edu/, under Employment.

Dr. John Foltz participated in the Redbay Wilt Symposium held at Jekyll Island, Georgia, 18-19 January 2007. About 70 people met to share information on the recently discovered disease that is killing Persea borbonia in the forests of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.

Staff News

Suzie Taylor resigned her position in our fiscal office to resume her education.

Alumni News

After six years of graduate school, Alejandro Arevalo graduated with his Ph.D. on 15 December. He then began a road trip north on Interstate 95, finally stopping at Orono, Maine, where he works at the University of Maine's Department of Biological Sciences in a post-doctoral position researching European fire ant, Myrmica rubra, IPM and behavior. One of his tasks will be to write extension publications on this species, such as is currently found at http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/2550.htm. You can still contact him at aleareva@ufl.edu.

Alejandro reported he was extremely grateful to global warming, el Niño or any other phenomena that kept Maine temperatures above freezing much of December and early January. Alejandro's report just missed the deadline for the January issue. Unfortunately for him, by mid-January the wind chill in Maine was -40°F. On January 17th, he responded to an email from the editor, who kidded him about the freezing weather, by replying that he had to run his car for 20 minutes to warm it up enough so that the frozen gear shift would work.

David Almquist (daidunno@hotmail.com), whose insect images you see hanging on the walls around the department, was interviewed by FSU Radio about his work for the Florida Natural Areas Inventory. You can listen to the interviews by going to http://tinyurl.com/2vkjy7 and listening to the 31 January 2007 interview on the "Florida Natural Areas Inventory: FNAI keeping track of our environment." Just like any "expert" interviewed by the press, David says, "They were not quite correct in everything that they said, and they did a lot of editing to what I said." David discusses his efforts to keep track of the pygmy scarab beetle and pygmy grasshopper, among others.

Florida State Fair

If you are in the Tampa Bay area during 8-19 February, take time to visit the Florida State Fair. Once again, several agencies and organizations have combined their resources to create the well-received Insect Encounters exhibit in the Agriculture Building. Along with our department, the Florida Mosquito Association, Florida Beekeeper Association, FDACS-Division of Plant Industry and the USDA all have booths and personnel on site every day. Along with plenty of handouts (illustrated publications, book marks, and other "give-aways"), there are plenty of live and dead arthropods on display.

This year our department's booth has a C-SI (Crimes - Solved with Insects) theme. On display will be many of the insects used in forensics and fair goers will be about to peruse "crime case books" and use the knowledge gained to help solve a "crime."

Dr. Jamie Ellis, our new apiculturist and youth outreach entomologist, is coordinating this year's effort. As always, Jane Medley's graphical design talents will be very much in "evidence."

Publications

Hoy MA, Peña J, Nguyen R. (November 2006). Red palm mite, Raoiella indica Hirst. Featured Creatures. EENY-397. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/palms/red_palm_mite.htm

Gozel U, Adams BJ, Nguyen KB, Inserra RN, Giblin-Davis RM, Duncan LW. 2006. A phylogeny of Belonolaimus populations in Florida inferred from DNA sequences. Nematropica 36: 155-171.

Malan AP, Nguyen KB, Addison MF. 2006. Entomopathogenic nematodes (Steinernematidae and Heterorhabditidae) from the southwestern parts of South Africa. African Plant Protection 12: 65-69.

Gozel U, Lamberti F, Duncan L, Agostinelli A, Rosso L, Nguyen KB, Adams BJ. 2006 Molecular and morphological consilience in the characterization and delimitation of five nematode species from Florida belonging to Xiphinema americanum-group. Nematology 8: 521-532.

Nguyen KB, Mracek Z, Webster JM. 2006. Morphological and molecular characterization of a new isolate of Steinernema feltiae (Filipjev 1934) from Vancouver, Canada, with morphometrical comparison with the topotype population from Russia. Zootaxa 1132: 51-61.

Nguyen KB, Shapiro-Ilan DI, Fuxa JR, Wood BW, Bertolotti MA, Adams BJ. 2006. Taxonomic and biological characterization of Steinernema rarum found in the Southeastern United States. Journal of Nematology 38: 28-40.

Nguyen KB, Malan AP, Gozel U. 2006. Steinernema khoisanae n. sp. (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae), a new entomopathogenic nematode from South Africa. Nematology 8: 157-175.

Nguyen KB, Gozel U, Koppenhofer HS, Adams BJ. 2006. Heterorhabditis floridensis n. sp. (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae) from Florida. Zootaxa 1177: 1-19.

Qiu L, Hu X, Zhou Y, Mei S, Nguyen KB, Pang Y. 2005. Steinernema akhursti sp. n. (Nematoda: Steinernematidae) from Yunan, China. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 90: 151-160.

Qiu L, Hu X, Zhou Y, Pang Y, Nguyen KB. 2005. Steinernema beddingi n. sp. (Nematoda: Steinernematidae), a new entomopathogenic nematode from Yunan, China. Nematology 7: 737-749.

Nguyen KB, Tesfamariam M, Gozel U, Gaugler R, Adams BJ. 2005. Steinernema yirgalemense n. sp. (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae) from Ethiopia. Nematology 6: 839-856.

Qiu L, Yan X, Nguyen KB, Pang Y. 2005. Steinernema aciari sp. n. (Nematoda: Steinernematidae), a new entomopathogenic nematode from Guangdong, China. Journal of Invertebrate Pathology 88: 58-69.

Mekete T, Gaugler R, Nguyen KB, Mandefro W, Tessera M. 2005. Biogeography of entomopathogenic nematodes in Ethiopia. Nematropica 35: 31-36.

Banu JG, Nguyen KB, Rajendran G. 2005. Occurrence and distribution of entomopathogenic nematodes in Kerala, India. International Journal of Nematology 15: 9-16.

Nguyen KB, Qiu L, Zhou Y, Pang Y. 2006. Steinernema leizhouense sp. n. (Nematoda: Steinernematidae), a new entomopathogenic nematode from southern China. Russian Journal of Nematology 14: 101-118..

Andalo V, Nguyen KB, Moino Jr A. 2006. Heterorhabditis amazonensis n. sp. (Rhabditida: Heterorhabditidae) from Amazonas, Brazil. Nematology 8: 853-867.

Zhou X, Tarver MR, Scharf ME. 2007. Hexamerin-based regulation of juvenile hormone responsive gene expression underlies phenotypic plasticity in a social insect. Development 134: 601-610.

Turner JC, Liburd OE (2007). Insect management in blueberries in the eastern United States. EDIS. ENY-411. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IG070

Baldwin RW, Oi FM. (2007). Institutional IPM: Inspection, Monitoring and Strategies. University of Florida/IFAS. CD-ROM. SP-427.

Geden CJ, Kaufman PE. 2007. Development of Spalangia cameroni and Muscidifurax raptor (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae) on live house fly (Diptera: Muscidae) pupae and pupae killed by heat shock, irradiation and cold. Environmental Entomology 36: 34-39.

Warner J, Scheffrahn RH. (January 2007). Bigheaded ant, Pheidole megacephala (Fabricius). Featured Creatures. EENY-369. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/urban/ants/bigheaded_ant.htm

Daniels JC. 2007. Courtship solicitation by females of the barred sulphur butterfly (Eurema daira) (Lepidoptera: Pieridae). Journal of Insect Behavior 20: 129-135.

Meetings and Presentations

Dr. Marc Branham served as a moderator for a session of the student talk competitions (Section A) at the 2006 Entomological Society of America meeting. Several other Branham Lab members contributed presentations at the meeting: Jennifer Zaspel – "Using spatial data to examine associations between environmental parameters and species distributions in tiger moths and fireflies from Cuba," Seth Bybee – "Winging it through the ages: what fossils tell us about the evolution of flight in Odonata," Kyle Beucke – "Using geographic information systems to study species distributions in five species of Mycotrupes beetles and its implications for conservation," and Anchana Thancharoen – "From captivity to conservation: A technique for rearing the aquatic firefly Luciola brahmina in Thailand."

Dr. Phil Kaufman presented the seminar "Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases in Florida" at the Florida Mosquito Control Association's 2007 Dodd Plenary Short Course in Ocala, FL, on 31 January. The Entomological Society of America presented a Certificate of Excellence to Dr. Rebecca Baldwin, Dr. Faith Oi, and Mr. James Kocher for The Outstanding Extension/Regulatory Poster "Using distance education technologies to provide continuing education credits in IPM for industry." The poster was displayed at the 2006 ESA annual meeting.

Dr. Oscar Liburd was an invited speaker at the southeastern Regional Fruit and Vegetable Conference, 4-7 January, in Savannah, Georgia. He spoke on "Managing blueberry insect pests in organic production systems."

Grants

The National Science Foundation recently funded a grant request by Drs. Dan Hahn and Jeff Feder (University of Notre Dame), "Diapause energetics in the apple maggot, Rhagoletis pomonella: a functional link between life history evolution and insect-host plant interactions," for $436,000.

Spring 2007 Seminars

This semester's seminar committee members are graduate students Seth Bybee, Amit Sethi, Murugesan Rangasamy, Craig Roubos, Andrew Dersksen and Jen Zaspel. Seminars are held on Thursday afternoons in room 1031. Refreshments are served at 3:45 pm, and the seminar begins at 4:00 pm. A listing of the seminars is available online in the January 2007 issue.

Segments

On 23-25 March, the first ever Florida regional meeting of the North American Butterfly Association will held at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity of the Florida Museum of Natural History. See Pest Alert (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/pestalert/) for details and registration information.

If you do not count the main page, the Featured Creatures Web site (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/) has only five menus and a little less than 400 articles. Despite this, in 2006 the site recorded 2,865,917 Distinct Visitors and 4,637,010 Page Views. Contact Thomas Fasulo for more information if you would like a little more exposure for yourself and your favorite arthropod. Web statistics show that even the least known arthropods receive 300 to 400 page views per month.

Dr. Matt Aubuchon (Ph.D. ‘2006), who now works with for the USDA, and Thomas Fasulo have made a number of changes and additions to the Areawide Suppression of Fire Ants Web site at http://fireant.ifas.ufl.edu/. These changes are preliminary modifications to some planned major additions as this project finishes up.

Bug Quote

"We are closer to the ants than to butterflies. Very few people can endure much leisure." - Gerald Brenan - English author and historian, 1894-1987.

Newsletter Minutia

Thomas Fasulo is the newsletter editor. You can submit news anytime 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. Pam Howell and Nancy Sanders review the newsletter for errors and prepare the print version for distribution. Andrew Puckett and Thomas Fasulo code the HTML version.

During the last 12 months, the newsletter Web site recorded 54,741 distinct visitors, 84,467 page views, and 6,689 downloaded PDF files.

February 2007.