April 2008
Faculty News
Dr. Simon Yu's book, The Toxicology and Biochemistry of Insecticides, is now available. If you purchase a copy, see the Department's For-Sale Publications list at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/fasulo/pests/forsale/ for the CRC link, ask Dr. Yu to autograph it next to his "college yearbook" photo!
Student News
Delano Lewis (http://delanolewis.com/) successfully passed his PhD qualifying exams. In June, he will present an invited presentation about his ongoing work on Cyllopoda (Geometridae: Sterrhinae) at the Forum Herbulot 2008, in Munich, Germany. His masters thesis (‘06) was a revision of this species. For his Ph.D. dissertation, he is investigating the potential threat of a southeast Asian invasive butterfly (often called the common lime or the lemon butterfly), Papilio demoleus, now in the Caribbean area and a pest of cultivated citrus.
Heidi Hanspetersen, Ph.D. student with Dr. Robert McSorly, was awarded the Vam C. York scholarship. Patricia Toth, MS student with Dr. Jamie Ellis, was awarded the Agricultural Women's Club scholarship. Awarded for scholastic achievement, these $500 awards provide financial assistance to female graduate students within the College of Agricultural and Life Science.
Two of our undergraduate majors, Fae Nageon de lestang and Casey Reed, are now University Scholars. See http://www.scholars.ufl.edu/ for details on this program.
Publications
Habeck DH, Cuda JP. (2008). Waterlily leafcutter, Synclita obliteralis (Walker). Featured Creatures. EENY-424. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/beneficial/leps/waterlily_leafcutter.htm
Yu, SJ. 2008. The Toxicology and Biochemistry of Insecticides. CRC Press, Boca Raton. 276 pp.
Srinivasan R, Hoy MA, Singh R, Rogers ME. 2008. Laboratory and field evaluations of Silwet L-77 and Kinetic alone and in combination with imidacloprid and abamectin for the management of the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri (Hemiptera: Psyllidae). Florida Entomologist 91: 87-100.
Lehnert MS. 2008. The population biology and ecology of the Homerus swallowtail, Papilio (Pterourus) homerus, in the Cockpit Country, Jamaica. Journal of Insect Conservation 12:179-188.
Liburd OE, Nyoike TW. (2008). Biology and management of whiteflies in sustainable field production of cucurbits. EDIS. UF/IFAS. ENY-848. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN762
Liburd OE, Nyoike TW. (2008). Biology and management of aphids in sustainable field production of cucurbits. EDIS. UF/IFAS. ENY-847. http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN761
Seminar Series – Spring 2008
This semester, graduate students Seth Bybee, Rosie Gill, Heidi Hanspetersen, Craig Roubos, Corraine Scott and Tricia Toth serve on the Seminar Committee. 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 seminars is available online in the January 2008 issue.
The remaining McGuire Center Seminars are listed in the online February 2008 issue.
Meetings and Presentations
Dr. Elke Weibelzahl presented an "Update on blueberry bud mite research at the University of Florida" to the Florida Blueberry Growers Association at their Spring Field Day hosted by the Plant Science and Research Unit in Citra.
Grants
Ph.D. student Jennifer M. Zaspel received a $18,445 grant from the National Geographic Society to do fieldwork on blood-feeding moths in far eastern Russia this summer. She was also awarded a $2,900 Systematics Association grant to work at the British Museum of Natural History studying fruit-piercing and blood-feeding moths in May.
Life in the Department
Hope Johnson and Thomas Fasulo plan to continue the once popular Life in the Department online articles in an easier-to-develop format, as part of this newsletter. Each in-depth article will consist of images, text and links on a separate HTML page linked from the newsletter's online version. Each article will be briefly mentioned in the printed version of the newsletter in two or three sentences, as is commonly seen for information in the Segments section. The online version of the newsletter will then link to the page for each activity. As such, the articles will be created with current technology, be easier to develop, and available to Web search engines.
There are three ways for faculty, staff and students to contribute articles:
1) provide text and images to Johnson, who will edit the material and provide them to Fasulo;
2) arrange with Johnson to take photographs and conduct an interview. She will then write the text and provide text and images to Fasulo;
3) a combination of the above.
Do not wait to receive the regular first-of-the-month notice about contributing to the newsletter before contacting Johnson, otherwise your article might not make that issue. Contact Hope at hopej@ufl.edu or by visiting the graphics lab.
Segments
On 13 March, ABC's Good Morning America weatherman Sam Champion and Dr. Jamie Ellis dumped nearly 15,000 bees into a hive at the Mid-Florida REC in Apopka. Champion, who was stung only once during the live broadcast, braved the bees as part of the show's "I Dare You" challenge.
Newsletter Minutiae
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. Thomas Fasulo codes the HTML version.
In the last 12 months, the newsletter Web site recorded 56,031 visitor sessions, 84,134 HTML page views and 7,568 PDF downloads.
April 2008.