May 2006

Faculty News

Toxicologist Dr. Simon Yu (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/s_yu.htm) retires at the end of July 2006. Forest entomologist Dr. John Foltz (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/foltz.htm) also plans to retire, but at the end of August 2006. The faculty awarded both of them Emeritus status. If you are interested, contact the department for information concerning their retirement receptions.

We almost had an open nematologist position at the Citrus Research and Education Center in Lake Alfred, Florida. On 22 April, at 5:30 p.m., Dr. Joseph Noling, fruit and vegetable nematologist, was swimming in Lake Whistler near his home in Auburndale, Florida, when he was attacked by an alligator. Fortunately, Dr. Noling escaped from the alligator, but he still suffered numerous puncture wounds. "I was swimming and out of nowhere he grabbed me on the shoulder," Joe said. "I have six or seven puncture wounds on one side and four or five on the other." Noling said he was petrified and felt he couldn't get to the shore fast enough, "I ran through the lake to get to shore." For further details, see the article in the Lakeland Ledger.

Dr. Oscar Liburd recently traveled to Washington, D.C., to serve as a panelist on a USDA competitive grants review board.

Dr. James P. Cuda was selected for inclusion in the 2006 editions of Outstanding Scientists of the 21st Century and Leading Scientists of the World published in Cambridge, England.

Drs. James P. Cuda and Julio Medal traveled to South America (Paraguay and Brazil) from 27 March to 16 April to continue surveys for natural enemies of Brazilian peppertree and tropical soda apple. Several new insects were discovered attacking Brazilian peppertree in eastern Paraguay.

Student News

Graduate student Amit Sethi received the 2006 Outstanding Ph.D. Display Award for his poster "Effect of Romaine Lettuce Latex on Banded Cucumber Beetle (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) Feeding" presented at the 80th annual meeting of the Southeastern Branch of the Entomological Society of America held 5-8 March, in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Alumni News

Dr. Michael Patnaude (Ph.D. 2001) is now senior research biologist at Springborn Smithers Laboratories in Wareham, Massachusetts. After receiving his Ph.D. here, he served as director of mosquito surveillance for the Westchester County Health Department, NY. He now works about 19 miles from where he grew up and is happy to be back in southeastern MA. Mike's current position is more research orientated and he works on sensitive insect bioassays, culturing, and environmental fate issues on a wide variety of insects. You can contact Mike at tickparasite@gmail.com or mpatnaude@springbornsmithers.com.

Navy Lieutenant and entomologist Dr. Kathryn Barbara (M.S., 2001; Ph.D. 2005) is at sea on an extended cruise with the U.S. Naval hospital ship Mercy. On 24 April, the Mercy departed San Diego in support of a five-month humanitarian assistance mission to the Western Pacific and Southeast Asia. See details at http://www.news.navy.mil/search/display.asp?story_id=23226. You can contact Katie at katbabs@hotmail.com or k_barbara@comcast.net.

Reading Room

The Reading Room Committee once again reminds us that no one is allowed to take materials out of the reading room, and no one is allowed to take food or drink in. You are also reminded that Reading Room users are monitored on closed-circuit TV, so wave and say hi. In addition, the committee asks that you tidy up after yourself before leaving the room. Those who wish to use the in-room copier should visit the stock room and get a PIN from Nick Hostettler.

Speaking of which... Please return Volume 104 of the Canadian Entomologist now!

Publications

Herbert J, Mizell RF. (February 2006). Crapemyrtle aphid, Sarucallis kahawaluokalani (Kirkaldy). UF/IFAS Featured Creatures. EENY-365. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/orn/trees/crapemyrtle_aphid.htm

Dunford JC, Kaufman PE. (March 2006). Lesser mealworm, Alphitobius diaperinus (Panzer). UF/IFAS Featured Creatures. EENY-367. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/livestock/poultry/lesser_mealworm.htm

Nearns EH. 2006. A checklist of the Cerambycidae (Coleoptera) holdings of the Fernando de Zayas Collection, Havana, Cuba. The Coleopterists Bulletin 60: 53-57.

Myers L, Liburd OE, Arévalo HA. 2006. Survival of Geocoris punctipes Say (Hemiptera: Lygaeidae) following exposure to selected reduced-risk insecticides. Journal of Entomological Sciences 41:57-64.

Bläske-Lietze V-U, Shapiro AM, Denton JS, Botts M, Becnel JJ, Boucias DG. 2006. Development of the insect pathogenic alga Helicosporidium. Journal of Eukaryotic Microbiology 53: 165-176.

Cuda JP, Ferriter AP, Manrique V. eds. 2006. Florida's Brazilian peppertree management plan, 2nd edition: Recommendations from the Brazilian peppertree Task Force, Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, April 2006. Available at http://ipm.ifas.ufl.edu/reports/BPmanagPlan.pdf.

Cuda JP, Ferriter AP, Overholt WA. 2006. Integrated Management Plan for Brazilian Peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolius) in Florida, Abstract pp. 8-9. In C. McCormick (ed.), "Little Crop of Horrors," Program Abstracts, Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, 21st Annual Symposium, 24-26th April, Gainesville, FL.

Meetings and Presentations

Dr. Jaret Daniels gave an invited talk at the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Eastern Regional meeting in Jacksonville, FL 26 March - 1 April 2006. On 31 March, he spoke in the Conservation Partnerships session. His talk, "Butterfly Initiatives," focused on the evolution of the Florida Butterfly Monitoring Network, a citizen scientist program designed to survey the health of butterfly populations on protected land areas throughout Florida in partnership with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Florida Natural Areas Inventory, and the Butterfly Conservation Initiative.

Dr. Jaret Daniels co-organized and co-taught the Association of Zoos and Aquariums professional development course "Techniques for Butterfly Conservation and Management" held at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity, 24-26 April, 2006. This inaugural insect-related course provided participants with a solid foundation in butterfly conservation and management techniques related to recovery efforts, including identification, natural history, captive husbandry and propagation, habitat restoration, population monitoring and cooperative programs. The 30 participants included representatives from academic, zoological, government, and wildlife management agencies.

Dr. Norm Leppla attended the 5th National Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Symposium in St. Louis, Missouri on 4-6 April 2006, where he served on the Media Committee and with Dr. Jennifer Gillett submitted a nomination package for Glades Crop Care, Inc. (Jupiter, Florida) to receive the first group IPM Achievement Award. Glades received the award and it was accepted jointly by Charles and Madeline Mellinger, Vice President and President & Founder, respectively. IPM Florida also nominated the "National Monroe IPM Model Implementation Team," including advancements to School IPM by Florida cooperators Drs. Faith Oi and Rebecca Baldwin but this team did not prevail in the stiff competition. During the conference, Dr. Norm Leppla represented Florida at the IPM Coordinator's National Session as Secretary, moderated the session "Demonstration Models forthe Successful Implementation of School IPM at the State Level" (including participation by Drs. Faith Oi and Rebecca Baldwin); and another session "Implementation of IPM through a Multi-disciplinary Doctoral Program in Plant Health Management" (with participation by DPM student Heidi HansPetersen).

Dr. Norm Leppla presented the following papers at the ESA Southeastern Branch meeting at Wilmington, North Carolina: "Implementation of School IPM at the State Level" by Drs. Rebecca Baldwin, Faith Oi, Norm Leppla and Jennifer Gillett; and "IPM Florida: The UF, IFAS Statewide IPM Program" by Drs. Norm Leppla and Jennifer Gillett.

Graduate student Bobbie Jo Davis recently spoke at the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council symposium. Her subject was "Evaluation of Artificial Diet Treatments for Rearing of Anthonomus tenebrosus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a Potential Biological Control Agent of Tropical Soda Apple, Solanum viarum."

On 24 April, Thomas Fasulo gave an invited talk to the Alachua County chapter of the Confederate Sons Association of Florida on the subject "Insects in History," with emphasis on the American Civil War and its aftermath.

Graduate student Onour Moeri recently gave two presentations based on her research: 1) "F1SIT: Innovative Approach for Field Host Range Testing of the Brazilian Peppertree Natural Enemy Episimus utilis (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)," a poster at the UF/IFAS Graduate Research Symposium in Gainesville, 24 March; and 2) "The F1 Sterile Insect Technique (F1SIT): A Novel Approach to Host Range Testing of the Tortricid Episimus utilis, A Natural Enemy of Brazilian Peppertree," at the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council's 21st Annual Symposium. Gainesville, 24-26 April. Co-authors were Drs. James P. Cuda, William A. Overholt, S. Bloem and J.E. Carpenter.

Graduate student Jim Dunford received sponsorship from the Rocky Mountain Conference of Entomologists to attend and present a talk at the upcoming 77th annual meeting in Woodland Park, Colorado, during 30 July-3 August.

On 11 February, graduate student Jim Dunford presented a talk on "Butterflies and Climate Change" at the North American Butterfly Association meeting in Ellenton, Florida.

Dr. James P. Cuda participated in the 21st Annual Symposium of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council. Cuda chaired the Brazilian peppertree Task Force Meeting and presented a report on Task Force activities to the Board of Directors. He also delivered an oral presentation on "Integrated Management Plan for Brazilian Peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolius) in Florida: An Update" to the members and was a co-author on five additional oral and poster presentations on biological control of hydrilla, Brazilian peppertree, tropical soda apple and West Indian marsh grass.

Dr. James P. Cuda participated as a speaker and session moderator at the 2006 Aquatic Weed Control Short course held in Coral Springs, FL, 1-5 May. Cuda gave presentation on "Surveys for New Natural Enemies of Hydrilla in East Africa: Preliminary Results," which was co-authored by Dr. Bill Overholt.

Dr. James P. Cuda attended the quarterly meeting of the UF/IFAS Invasive Plants Working Group held in Gainesville, 14 April. The purpose of this group is to resolve conflicts between IFAS faculty regarding recommendations by Environmental Horticulture for using potentially invasive plants in the urban and rural landscapes.

Grants

Drs. Pete Anderson and Oscar Liburd (University of Florida), and Drs. Gerard Krewer, Herald Scherm and Greg Fonsah (University of Georgia) received a grant for $357,351 to develop an organic program for blueberry production in Florida and Georgia. The grant is funded over a four year period.

Dr. Jaret Daniels received a grant for $35,000 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to continue work on the "Conservation of Endangered Miami Blue Butterfly" through 2007.

Tree Bugs

Dr. John Foltz will teach Insects Affecting Trees (ENY 6934, Section 0660) during Summer A (Tuesday & Thursday) for DPM and Entomology graduate students. This 2-credit course gives students the ability and skills to detect, identify, and manage insect pests of trees. Students will learn the morphological characters, life cycle, behavior, ecology, and population dynamics of representative insects through laboratory exercises, field trips, and the study of printed, Web-based, and other resource materials. Contact Dr. Foltz at (352) 392-1901, x130 or foltz@ufl.edu for additional information.

Undergraduate Testing

Undergraduate majors have probably heard the rumors; here are some facts. Dr. Carl Barfield, undergraduate coordinator, spoke at the last faculty meeting on the Florida Legislature's mandate that each college and department assess the knowledge of undergraduate majors. How our department will do this is still under discussion. Dr. Barfield handed out some suggestions and asked the faculty to make comments or suggestions. Departmental "policy" will then be passed on to the deans. Florida is not alone in requiring this academic step, as this is a national trend.

The basic idea is that students will be required to read and interpret an assigned scientific article, and then write a short paper on it. Dr. Barfield said he will administer the assessment, but that he will ask faculty to act as back-up for him, especially in individual areas of expertise. There are six entomology/nematology degree tracks and each track will have its own special literature track that the students will research. The Dean's office will create a Web site on this assessment program that our departmental Web site will link to.

Suggestions included that the paper be required within one semester of graduation, and that students achieve a 70% score to pass. Five different criteria were suggested for the students to cover, each worth 20%. In addition to a total of 80% based on an analysis of scientific content, 20% will be based on "grammar, syntax, flow and readability." One suggestion, that the faculty approved, is an elective/required (?) 3-credit research experience "course" for students in the basic sciences specialization of the undergraduate major.

Snap! Crackle! Beetle!

Lyle Buss and Thomas Fasulo recently released the Stored Product Pest Images CD-ROM (SW 185), available through the Extension Bookstore. This CD is a companion to the previously released Cockroach Images CD and the three Vegetable Pest Images CDs. The Stored Product Pests CD has 81 images of 30 different species or groups in three different resolutions: Web-optimized, display-sized for large audiences, and print quality. Cost is $15. See http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/fasulo/pests/software/ for details.

LIFE in the Department

The April 28th issue covers Army Captain-graduate student Ricky Vasquez in Egypt and his "promotion" to LT. CMDR.???; the Brazilian Peppertree Management Plan; the Firefly "Game Lab"; and recruiting future UF entomologists.

The April 14th issue covers gliding ants — the precursor to flight?; pornographic insect art — will Congress recall Dr. Jim Lloyd's NEA grants?; the Society for Viral Studies visit to NIH; and highlights of our department's external review.

Mike Sanford edits this photographic journal of our department, located at http://life.ifas.ufl.edu/index.html.

IPM — Now On DVD

The UF/IFAS IPM Florida Group (http://ipm.ifas.ufl.edu/) released a 90 minute Integrated Pest Management in Florida DVD of successful Integrated Pest Management (IPM) projects focusing on how different methods of insect, weed and disease control impact agriculture, community and natural areas. The DVD emphasizes IPM practices: scouting, biological, chemical, cultural and mechanical control methods.

Produced by IPM Florida's Drs. Jennifer Gillett and Norm Leppla, the DVD presents fundamental IPM knowledge and practices by exhibiting examples of successful IPM projects in clear and concise two to three minute segments. The DVD is designed as an educational tool appropriate for most audiences.

The DVD is divided into 20 segments in three categories: agriculture, community and natural areas. Each category opens with an introduction orienting the viewer to the topics. Each segment focuses on integrated pest management practices targeting issues and actions concerning a specific area of IPM concern. The three categories break the IPM content into well defined categories allowing anyone from a novice to the experienced scientist to feel comfortable navigating the disk, searching for specific information on an array IPM interests and methods. A contents panel on the DVD case contains a legend indicating the specific emphasis of each segment.

DVDs are available through IPM Florida by e-mailing gillett@ufl.edu. - Dr. Jennifer Gillett

Bad News

Most of the information posted on the Pest Alert Web site at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/pestalert/ is bad news for the residents of Florida as well as people in many other areas. Despite that, a little over 600 (as of 3 May) people world-wide are subscribers to the PestAlert-l listserv, perhaps proving what the media already know — good news is boring but bad news travels fast.

While many subscribers are individuals who have an interest in one industry, others are government or university administrators and scientists who have interests across a range of areas. It is no surprise that 87 subscribers have ufl.edu email addresses (this does not include many county faculty who often subscribe under non-ufl addresses) and another 37 are with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. However, 40 are with USDA-APHIS, while another 10 also have USDA addresses. Internationally, many subscribers are from other countries, but the ANZACs make up the largest contingent with 18 subscribers from Australian and New Zealand government agencies.

Items posted on Pest Alert usually consist of new pest announcements from UF/IFAS and DPI scientists, as well as announcements of meetings, UF/IFAS Field Days, new Featured Creatures, weekly Florida Department of Health Arbrovirus Summaries, etc. While some information on Pest Alert is released there for the first time, most of the links are to information at university, government or other agency sites that entomologist and Webmaster Thomas Fasulo monitors or is made aware of. This is only fair, as Webmasters of many of those sites are subscribers to PestAlert-l and add information to their sites that was first announced on Pest Alert (as their credit show). During the last 12 months, the Pest Alert Web site recorded 95,022 distinct visitors, 148,762 HTML page views and 46,262 PDF downloads.

Numbers

Here is something for bean counters to mull over. Sometime in late-April, our Featured Creatures Web site (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/) recorded over four million page views in the last 12 months. Since we started keeping statistics with LiveStats in January 2002, this site has recorded 5,943,299 distinct visitors and 11,092,842 page views. Since there are only one index page and five menu pages, this means most of the totals are generated by information pages. The index is often the second most accessed page while, of the menus, only the Common Name menu is in the top 20.

 

Newsletter Minutia

Thomas Fasulo is the newsletter editor. You can send news 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 coded the HTML version.

During the last 12 months, the newsletter Web site recorded 45,992 distinct visitors and 85,896 page views. In addition, visitors downloaded 2,179 PDF files during January-April 2006.


May 2006.