March 2009
Faculty News
Florida nematologists cooperated to write a comprehensive obituary for Dr. A. Charles Tarjan, who died in late January. Please see Charles_Tarjan.pdf.
Dr. Joseph Funderburk, of the North Florida Research and Education Center in Quincy, was named the UF/IFAS International Fellow for 2008. See http://emr.ifas.ufl.edu/inside_ifas/2009/005.html for details.
Dr. James P. Cuda participated in a two-day workshop that addressed UF’s role in sustainability in academic programs, internal and external communication, and interdisciplinary research. The purpose of the workshop, held on 23-24 February at the Reitz Union, was to develop and provide feedback on a draft strategic plan.
Thomas Fasulo gave a 2-hour presentation on "Insects and History" to 51 education students in Dr. Rebecca Baldwin's Life Science (ENY 3007C) class.
Dr. Dorota Porazinska was featured in an IFAS news release regarding her paper on Computer-assisted genetic analysis for identifying nematodes. The paper was published was published online this month in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources. See the news release at http://news.ifas.ufl.edu/story.aspx?id=1327.
Publications
Pfiester M, Kaufman PE. (2009). Rat-tailed maggot, Eristalis tenax (Linnaeus) Featured Creatures. EENY-445. http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/livestock/rat-tailed_maggot.htm
Frank JH, Leppla NC, Sprenkel RK, Blount AC, Mizell III RF. (2009). Larra bicolor Fabricius (Hymenoptera: Crabronidae): its distribution throughout Florida. Insecta Mundi 0063: 1-5. http://fulltext10.fcla.edu/DLData/SN/SN07496737/2009/063/0063.pdf
Tarver MR, Schmelz EA, Rocca JR, Scharf ME. 2009. Effects of soldier-derived terpenes on soldier caste differentiation in the termite Reticulitermes flavipes. Journal of Chemical Ecology 35: 256-264.
Arthurs SP, McKenzie CL, Chen J, Dogramaci M, Brennan M, Houben K, Osborne LS. 2009. Evaluation of Neoseiulus cucumeris and Amblyseius swirskii (Acari: Phytoseiidae) as biological control agents of chilli thrips, Scirtothrips dorsalis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae), on pepper. Biological Control 49: 91-96. (Abstract: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocontrol.2009.01.002)
Halbert SE, Corsini D, Wiebe M, Vaughn SF. 2009. Plant-derived compounds and extracts with potential as aphid repellents. Annals of Applied Biology 154: 303-307.
Wenninger EJ, Stelinski LL, Hall DG. 2009. The roles of olfactory cues, visual cues, and mating status in orientation of Diaphorina citri Kuwayama (Hemiptera: Psyllidae) to four different host plants. Environmental Entomology 38: 225-234.
Stelinski LL, Il'Ichev AL, Gut LJ. 2009. Efficacy and release rate of reservoir pheromone dispensers for simultaneous mating disruption of codling moth and oriental fruit moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). Journal of Economic Entomology 102: 315-323.
Jeyaprakash A, Hoy MA. 2009. The nuclear genome of the phytoseiid Metaseiulus occidentalis (Acari: Phytoseiidae) is among the smallest known in arthropods. Experimental & Applied Acrology 47: 263-273.
Meetings and Presentations
During 9-13 February, Dr. James P. Cuda and three of his students participated in a joint Annual Meeting of the Weed Science Society and Southern Weed Science Society held in Orlando, Florida. Cuda organized a tour of local weed biological control projects (hydrilla and tropical soda apple) for the International Bioherbicide Group, and moderated an oral paper session on weed biological control. Abhishek Mukherjee received an award for the Ph.D. paper competition for his simulated herbivory research on the aquatic weed hygrophila, and Tobias Schmid, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute undergraduate student, presented a poster on his research project investigating biocontrol of fluridone-resistent hydrilla.
Dr. James P. Cuda participated in an Extension In-service training and planning session dealing with "Climate Change: What Does it Mean for Florida?" The two-day workshop was held in Plant City, Florida, during 18-20 February.
Know Your Termites
During 22-26 June 2009, entomology faculty at the Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center will present the Termite Biology and Control course.
The course runs from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm for all five days. Instructors include Drs. Rudolf Scheffrahn, Nan-Yao Su, and William Kern, Jr., who have a combined 60 years experience in termite research, teaching, and extension. Topics covered will include anatomy, taxonomy, evolution, ecology, identification, and physiology of the major termite families. Management strategies will be covered for subterranean and drywood termites. Identification laboratories and field trips are included. There are no prerequisites for the course, but an introductory course in entomology is strongly recommended.
The couse objectives include:
Selected readings and references will be available on the first day of class.
For registration information contact Janet Miranda at (954) 577-6371 or jmiranda@ufl.edu.
Florida State Fair - Insects as Food
The Florida Entomological Society (FES) sponsored Insect Encounters at the State Fair in Tampa, FL, during 6-16 February 2009. Various local entomological organizations had booths: the University of Florida Entomology and Nematology Department, the Florida Department of Agriculture - Division of Plant Industry, the USDA Center for Medical and Veterinary Entomology, The McGuire Center for Lepidoptera, the Florida Pest Management Association, etc. Displays included arthropod collections, entomophagy (insects as food), honey production in Florida, fire ants management, termite farms and more.
State Fair officials estimate that approximately 65,000 individuals visited the Agriculture Hall of Fame building where Insect Encounters was housed. Dr. Rebecca Baldwin of our department helped coordinate the event and she provided a PDF file showing the booths and some of the volunteers. See 2009_State_Fair.pdf. The FES Education and Outreach committee is responsible for requesting educational booth participants for Insect Encounters. If you have suggestions, or if you know any group or organization that would be interested, please contact her.
Jane Medley, Nick Hostettler and Dr. Rebecca Baldwin went down to Tampa to set up the exhibit on February 5th, and Nick brought everything back on the 17th.
Departmental faculty, staff and students who participated during the Fair were: Eddie Atkinson, Dr. Rebecca Baldwin, Dr. Eileen Buss, Sharon Clemmensen, Dr. Jim Cuda, Dan Fitzpatrick, Jason Graham (2 days), Craig Littauer, Jane Medley, Thomson Paris, Dr. Roberto Pereira, Rosana Serikawa (2 days), Will Sanders, Shine Taylor (2 days), Matt Thom, Anthony Vaudo, Catherine Westbrook, and Catherine Zettel. Things can get a little hectic at times, especially if you are at the booth by yourself. However, if you did not volunteer this year, just ask any of those who did how much fun they had, and you will be sorry you missed it.
Seminar Series – Spring 2009
This semester, the seminar committee consists of graduate students Roxanne Burrus, Rosie Gill, Ameya Gondhalekar, Guarav Goyal, Vivek Kumar, Teresia Nyoike, Heidi HansPetersen, Will Sanders, Corraine Scott (Chair). 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 2009 issue.
Newsletter Minutiae
Thomas Fasulo is the newsletter editor. Departmental faculty, staff, students and alumni can submit news anytime to fasulo@ufl.edu. Issues usually are published by early mid-month. Submit items for an issue by the 7th of that month.
UF-Bugnews-L listserv subscribers receive notices when issues are posted on the newsletter Web site at http://entnews.ifas.ufl.edu/, which has instructions for subscribing and unsubscribing. Pam Howell and Nancy Sanders review the newsletter for errors. Thomas Fasulo does the HTML coding.
March 2009.