Dr. Jeff Bloomquist has been selected as the 2019 recipient of the ESA Southeastern Branch Recognition Award in Insect Physiology, Biochemistry, and Toxicology.

Using funds awarded through the UF/IFAS Travel Awards for Research Grant Enhancement (TARGET) Program, Dr. Bryony Bonning, Dr. Adam Dale, Dr. Peter DiGennaro, Dr. Zane Grabau, Dr. Andrea Lucky, Dr. Rachel Mallinger, and Dr. Adam Wong traveled to Alexandria, VA and Washington, DC from February 4th to the 6th to visit with program officers with NSF, NIH, EPA, and USDA. This trip was coordinated by Dr. Bonning to promote professional development in grant writing for junior faculty in the department.

ABOVE: The Florida State Fair is in full swing. If you are in Tampa stop by the Insect Encounters section to see our display. Special thanks to Kay Weigel and Suzy Rodriguez for making the design a reality and to Angel Perez for going with them to help set-up the booth!

Singing Insects of North America (SINA) is a website established by Emeritus Prof Dr. Tom Walker in 2001. He and his personal assistant Dr. Teresa Cooper are currently using EYN room 2104 and part of room 2115 to give the website a major update. To tempt you to learn more about SINA, they provided this link.

Bahder Lab is running a crowdfunding project “Monitoring the small-but-mighty planthoppers and their potential impacts on plant health in Florida” as part of the ESA Grant Challenge. Please go to the project page to check what they are doing and support the project if you think it is important!

Dr. Rudolf Scheffrahn (Ft. Lauderdale R.E.C.) has launched a new termite website at https://www.rudolfscheffrahn.com/. The site currently contains an identification key for Florida termites, characteristics of economically important termites of Florida and the United States, and images of termites from the U.S., the Neotropics, and beyond. Future postings will include images, distribution maps, and unpublished data of all the termites in the UF collection at FLREC. Currently, the UF termite collection contains 44,053 colony samples.

ABOVE: Selected images of termite species from the United States: A. Zootermopsis angusticollis (western rottenwood termite, California), B. Pterotermes occidentis (Arizona), Marginitermes hubbardi (Arizona), Coptotermes gestroi (Asian subterranean termite, Florida).

Dr. James P. Cuda was featured in the inaugural issue of the South African Center for Biological Control Newsletter.

Dr. James P. Cuda was invited by the South African National Biodiversity Institute to review a chapter on alien aquatic plants in freshwater ecosystems intended for inclusion in a new book titled “Biological Invasions in South Africa.” 

The Chouvenc Lab visited the Gillian Gile Lab at Arizona State University on January 6th to the 12th for a collaborative project involving the research projects of graduate students Joseph Velenovsky and Johnalyn Gordon. During this visit, both students presented their research to the Gile Lab, and learned the general molecular pipeline to characterize protozoan communities within termite guts.

A delegation of 35 people from the French pest control industry visited the FLREC on January 16th. During their visit, Dr. Nan-Yao Su and Dr. Thomas Chouvenc provided an historical perspective of the development of termite baits, and their current implication in termite control procedures.

Dr. Zane Grabau and Ph.D. Candidate Lesley Schumacher attended the Beltwide Cotton Conferences in New Orleans, LA from January 7th to the 10th.  Lesley presented a poster "Vertical Distribution and Population Dynamics of Nematodes as Influenced by Crop Rotation and Irrigation."  Dr. Grabau presented a talk on "Impacts of Brassica carinata and Summer Crop Rotation on Nematode Management" in the Cotton Disease Council session.

ABOVE: Dr. Grabau and Lesley were also invited to give the Michigan State University Department of Entomology Seminar on January 28th in East Lansing, MI. The title of the presentation was "Pest Management and Soil Ecology in Agricultural Systems."  

Oliver Keller, graduate student in the Branham Lab, was voted  to be the 2019 president of the Center for Systematic Entomology. The CSE is non-profit corporation designed to further systematics in its broadest sense, and the publisher of the journal Insecta Mundi.

Liburd Lab M.Sc. student Krystal Ashman was voted onto the board of directors of the Center for Systematic Entomology for the years 2019-2021.

Matthew Borden, DPM and M.Sc. student in the Dale Lab, was selected to receive the 2019 Southern Region IPM Center Friends of IPM Graduate Student Award in the Master's category. This is a highly competitive award that comes with a $2,000 honorarium. Please congratulate Matt on this accomplishment.

Jillian Rutkowski recently joined the laboratory of Dr. James P. Cuda. Jillian is an undergraduate intern who will be involved in laboratory rearing of the Brazilian peppertree weevil Apocnemidophorus pipitzi, and maintaining some of our nursery plants, especially cogongrass.

We are proud to welcome 11 new graduate students this spring.

Our new MS students are: Rosan Adhikari, Xiomara Flores, Kimberly Kester, Kristine Persing, Odette Reza-Brown, Lisa Rodriguez, Tyler Shaw, Bryce Shirk, Noemi Soto, and Mussie Tsegay.

Our new Ph.D. student is Mohamed Farouk Ali.

Casey Parker attended and judged the Science Fair at East Marion Elementary School on January 23rd.

Florida Medical Entomology Laboratory graduate students Bethany McGregor and Casey Parker were recognized for their service to the Society for Vector Ecology with an Appreciation of Service Award.

We Award Scholarship to Two 4-H Recipients

Every year, the high scoring individual at the Florida 4-H Insectathon contest receives a $500 four-year scholarship to the department. This year, two individuals were awarded the scholarship – Taylor Dykes and Will Eubanks from Alachua County 4-H.

ABOVE: Taylor and Will have been 4-H members and teammates together for more than six years. Taylor is a 16 year old homeschool student and is president of Town & Country 4-H and Alachua County 4-H Council. Will is a 16 year old PK Yonge school student and is the Micanopy 4-H president and Alachua County 4-H Council treasurer. They are both officers with District V 4-H Council and serve as members of the Florida 4-H State Executive Board. 

After attending and being inspired by the UF Bug Camp and Dr. Baldwin, Taylor and Will became heavily involved with the entomology project. They helped form the first 4-H entomology team in Florida and teach insect collecting, basic insect ID, and more around Florida.  To encourage more 4-H members in the entomology project, Will and Taylor helped start and teach a weeklong bug day camp in Alachua County for elementary students.  They are now planning the fifth day camp for the summer of 2019.  For the 2019 Insectathon, Will was the high scoring individual for the Insect ID Contest and Taylor was the high scoring individual for the Insect Collection Contest. 

From the Outreach Coordinator

January Outreach Events:
Jan 10th- Career Day Santa Fe: Dr. Baldwin
Jan 11th- Homeschool tour Steinmetz: Sage Thompson, Morgan Pinkerton
Jan 26th-Insectathon!!- Oliver Keller, Dr. Branham, Johanna Schwartz, Matt Borden, Cleveland Ivey, Keara Clancy

ABOVE: Do your part and sign up to work at our booth at the State Fair! Contact Clayton for available dates.

The live critters are always a hit with children and adults alike. The critters are available for you to check out should you be leading an outreach event. We have doubles of our most popular critters, as well as various native insect species depending on the time of year. We have large wood and Plexiglas cages for viewing our native orb weaving spiders. There is one travel cage and one larger static cage. Please be sure to contact us and review the protocol on transporting and handling the critters if you are not already familiar with it. If you lead an outreach, be sure to fill out a documentation form so your event can be included in the newsletter and we can log all outreach events.