Rob Williams

Students Receive Recognition During 25th Meeting of International Congress of Entomology

October 12, 2016 by Rob Williams

Pierre Lau, left, Dr. May Berenbaum, Ryan Selking, and Shelby Kilpatrick at the awards presentation. Photo by Andrew Graf.

ORLANDO—The month of September has been good for the Department of Entomology as six students received awards during the International Congress of Entomology (ICE) meeting in Orlando.

Held every four years, ICE allows entomologists worldwide to collaborate and communicate their ideas and to make important connections with entomologists and scientists and compete in global presentation competitions.

This year’s meeting featured keynotes from Nobel Prize recipients Drs. Peter Agre and Jules Hoffmann and featured various plenary speakers each day throughout the duration of the conference. In addition, several of our grad and undergrad students were featured in the conference’s poster and student presentation sessions.

Alex Payne standing in front of a banner in Orlando — Alex Payne. Submitted Photo.

In the “Entomology Around the World” undergraduate category, Shelby Kilpatrick won first place for her presentation titled “An updated checklist of the bees of the Commonwealth of Dominica (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila)” while Ryan Selking received second place for his presentation titled “A comparison of spider family diversity on vegetation between primary rainforest and secondary rainforest.”

In the Graduate Student Oral Competition, Pierre Lau received first place for his talk in the “Ecology and Population Dynamics” category for “Palynological analysis of pollen collected by honey bees (Apis mellifera) in developed areas in four regions of the United States.”

In the “Urban Entomology in a Changing Environment: Ants” category, MacKenzie Kjeldgaard received first place for her talk titled “I’ll have what she’s having: Next-Generation insights into the diets of invasive ants” while Alex Payne received First Place in the “Undergraduate Student Oral Competition-Frontiers In Entomology” for her presentation titled “The effects of honey bee (Apis mellifera) queen insemination volume on colony growth.”

“There were so many amazing presentations throughout the conference,” Lau said. “I was overjoyed to find out that I was able to represent my school by winning the Ecology and Population Dynamics: Pollination section. I am grateful for all of the support everyone has provided me.”

Assistant Professor of Apiculture Dr. Juliana Rangel was very proud of Lau on receiving the award.

“Pierre’s presentation was incredibly well received,” she said. “He had a lot of comments and questions afterwards and he looked very comfortable and knowledgeable of the material that was presented. He’s a really great presenter and I am really proud of him!”

Payne was very excited and proud to have received such high honors for her presentation.

“Even though I was extremely nervous before giving my talk, I wanted to proudly represent my lab and A&M to my global audience and show that I am a part of a university that puts a strong emphasis on undergraduate research and success,” Payne said. “It feels rewarding to have one first place for my talk as it means that all the time I spent conducting my research and preparing my presentation paid off in the end!”

Rangel was very impressed by Payne’s professionalism during the presentation.

“Alex has shown to be very professional and I am very proud of her accomplishment,” Rangel said.

Kilpatrick enjoyed the time she had and thanked all that supported her research endeavors throughout her college career.

“I am very thankful to have had the opportunity to attend ESA/ICE this year. The Congress was an amazing experience and it was a privilege to represent Texas A&M University during the event,” Kilpatrick said. “I learned a lot as well as made memories and connections that will make a difference in my future. I was also thrilled to be recognized for my research at the end of the week alongside several of my friends and colleagues.”

Selking also received third place in the Triplehorn insect pinning challenge, which is a timed tournament to see who is the fastest in mounting and pinning insect specimens. He said that it was great getting the chance to present his research and networking with other colleagues worldwide, as well as participating in the competitions.

“This was my first time ever attending an entomology conference, and considering that it was the largest gathering of entomologists in history, it was a lot to take in. I realized the importance of going to these conferences, to keep up to date with who is researching what and what progress they have made, and it is also a great place to network,” he said. “Networking at these conferences not only opens up possible schooling or career options, but it is also a great place to find collaborators for graduate student projects as I did.”

Kjeldgaard said the conference was a great networking and learning opportunity and was excited about winning first place for her talk.

“I am very happy,” she said. “I also got to meet a lot of fantastic scientists and attend a number of interesting talks. It was a massive conference, but I enjoyed every minute of it.”

Faculty Members and Student Receive Top College Awards

October 4, 2016 by Rob Williams

COLLEGE STATION, Texas—Three people from the Department of Entomology received the highest honors the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences gives out annually during its annual Awards Ceremony on September 29.

Drs. Juliana Rangel and Adrienne Brundage, and senior Shelby Kilpatrick won three awards for their hard work and dedication with the Department and College.

Rangel was honored with the Dean’s Outstanding Achievement Award for Early Career Research for her work during the first few years since she joining the Department.

Since Rangel joined the faculty as Assistant Professor of Apiculture in 2013, she has been able to acquire approximately $1 million in extramural support and funding for her research program, focusing on providing solutions to unexplained colony decline, or colony collapse disorder, with a study on the effects of agricultural pesticides on honey bee fertility, a grant to identify floral sources foraged by honey bees in four different locations in the U.S., and a grant to create and lead the Texas A&M University’s Tech Transfer Team.

In collaboration with the Texas Beekeepers Association, Rangel also wrote a successful grant to help raise awareness of the benefits of “Real Texas Honey.” Along with the above major grants, she forged several significant collaborations with faculty and national and internationally to research honey bee queen and drone reproduction, ecological genetics of feral Africanized honey bees, and integrated pest management techniques for control of Varroa destructor mites in Texas apiaries.

She also has served on numerous departmental committees, including the Faculty Advisory, Capital Gains, and Graduate Student Recruitment committees and coached the undergraduate and graduate Linnaean teams. Since coaching the teams, one graduate and one undergraduate team placed first and second place in regional competitions and advanced to the national competition that was held in Orlando this September.

As part of her service role for the Texas beekeeping industry, Rangel writes a column for every issue of the Texas Beekeepers Association Journal and she speaks at several state and national beekeepers association meetings throughout the year. In conjunction with the Texas Apiary Inspection Service (TAIS) she helped start the Texas Master Beekeepers Program and she serves on the Board of Directors.

“Her enthusiasm is infectious and in the end she is exposing as many people as possible to the science of apiculture and the joys of beekeeping,” Entomology Department Head Dr. David Ragsdale said in the nomination letter.

shelby-cover — Shelby Kilpatrick. Submitted photo.

Shelby Kilpatrick also received the Dean’s Outstanding Achievement Award in Undergraduate Research. Since her academic career, Kilpatrick has been active student in the Department’s Honors Program research projects, including studying horse and deer fly trap effectiveness in College Station, sodium regulation and homeostasis in the grasshopper Schistocerca Americana, and collecting, rearing and studying the lacewing species Abachrysa eureka.

Her most notable research project was when she traveled to Dominica in 2015 for her individual project. In Dominica, she conducted a survey of pollinator biodiversity that focused on a subset of pollinators that are abundant on the island. With her project, Kilpatrick collaborated with Drs. James Woolley and Jason Gibbs, where she collected a total of 77 specimens representing 13 bee species in the Apidae and Halictidae from 12 sites on the island.

After returning from Dominica, Kilpatrick studied the procured specimens and found three species that were new records, as well as four that were very new to science, in which one species was named in her honor. She then presented her research and received first place at the 64^th annual Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society meeting and at the Ecological Integration Symposium, and was a top finalist for the Division of Student Affairs Award during Student Research Week in April.

“Shelby’s professionalism, her approach to science, her clear and concise description of her project and the results were spectacular,” Ragsdale said. “She is an amazing public speaker.”

Kilpatrick also serves a leadership role in the Department of Entomology Scholars Society, the undergraduate Entomology Student Organization, Texas A&M Collegiate 4-H Club and a supervisory team member at the TAMU Insect Collection.

“Shelby is committed to the success of her projects and strives to ensure that a level of excellence is met in each one she undertakes,” Ragsdale said.

adrienne-brundage-for-wordpress — Adrienne Brundage. Photo by Rob Williams

The Dean’s Award for Early Career Teaching was awarded to Dr. Adrienne Brundage. Since fall 2013, Brundage has been teaching in the Department as a full time lecturer. She currently teaches the Veterinary Entomology (ENTO 208), Medical Entomology (ENTO 423), undergraduate seminar, and Intro to Forensic Sciences (FIVS 205), teaching several hundred students each semester.

Brundage’s philosophy is to make the subject matter engaging, interesting, and impactful for her students.

“She is an exceptionally gifted teacher,” Ragsdale said. “She cuts through the extraneous information, and presents new and complex knowledge to students in such a way that it not only sticks, but impacts their lives. She does this through innovative and exciting teaching methods, coupled with an attentive, caring, and enthusiastic demeanor. Adrienne holds her students to a very high standard, and is confident that when they leave the university they will understand and expand their chosen field into new and unexplored areas.”

Brundage is very active in several outreach programs, including teaching high school students during the Youth Outreach Program, various children’s groups and schools in the Brazos Valley in both entomology and forensics. Most recently, Brundage was asked by the Texas State Anthropological Facility to train college students and police officers on using insects in forensic science. In addition to outreach, she also advises the First Responders Training Unit, the Order of Aggie Illusionists, and the Aggie Forensic Sciences Organization.

“Dr. Brundage embodies the spirit of what a junior professor at a land grant university should be – an exceptionally accomplished teacher who is making an impact in student’s lives and in her science,” Ragsdale said.

In addition to the awards, several faculty members were recognized for being new and for promotion and tenure. Drs. Zach Adelman and Kevin Myles were recognized as new faculty while Dr. Hojun Song was recognized for receiving promotion and tenure.

“Nosey” Butterflies Visit South Central Texas on Annual Migration

September 19, 2016 by Rob Williams

By Paul Schattenberg, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

The snout butterfly gets its name from the elongated “palps” that protrude from its head. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo)

SAN ANTONIO – What may appear to some to be a butterfly invasion in South Central Texas is really just an annual migration of the American snout butterfly, said Molly Keck, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist for Bexar County.

“Right now these snout butterflies are migrating through the region in huge numbers on their way toward the Rio Grande River area,” Keck said

She said the insect gets its name from the elongated mouthparts called “palps” that extend from the head.

“They are small- to medium-sized butterflies that are much smaller than a monarch and also a bit smaller than a painted lady,” Keck explained. “They have orange and brown markings and blend in perfectly with the bark of trees. When flying, they can look like a small leaf fluttering in the wind.”

Keck said each year snouts make their migration, but their numbers correlate with the amount of rainfall and moisture available. She said other butterflies may be mixed in with the snouts, such as sulfurs and possibly some brush-footed butterflies, but those migrating in large numbers are most likely the American snout.

“This year we had rain at the right times to help their population,” she said. “What the rain actually does is increase the number and size of leaves on the tree that are the snouts’ primary food source – the spiny hackberry. With more food, the females lay more eggs in the summer. Those eggs hatch and the caterpillars eat the new growth.”

She said the caterpillars can only eat new growth from the spiny hackberry because it is tender enough for them to chew.

“This population explosion we are seeing is the result of those caterpillars becoming pupa and emerging to migrate down south,” she said. “Migration is often during late summer to early fall. And it isn’t uncommon to see these butterflies migrating in large numbers.”

Keck said South Central Texas residents can expect to continue seeing the snout migration throughout early fall.

“In some years, we see two generations migrating before the fall is over,” she said. “I suppose time will tell if that will occur this year.”

Keck said while the snouts can be annoying and leave a mess on a car during a road trip, there is really no way to avoid them and they do serve a positive environmental purpose.

“Like bees, butterflies are good pollinators and provide a service to both agriculture and the homeowner through plant pollination,” she said.

Department Remembers Dr. Horace Burke

September 9, 2016 by Rob Williams

Dr. Horace Burke, right, with Dr. John Oswald in 2009 during a faculty meeting. Photo by Rob Williams.

Dr. Horace Burke, Professor Emeritus, passed away on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, in College Station, Texas.

Burke was born April 1, 1926 near Elkhart, Texas to Franklin Parks Burke and Minnie Lee Walling Burke. After attending Elkhart High School, he served in the United States Army 17th Airborne Division, 194th Glider Infantry in World War II. Burke also served as part of the 13th Airborne and 82nd Airborne Divisions.

Upon resuming civilian life back in Texas, Horace attended Sam Houston State University where he earned a degree in Biology, then achieved his Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Entomology from Texas A&M University.

After working for the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station for several years, he became a professor of Entomology at Texas A&M in 1958, where he continued to teach and perform scientific research for nearly 40 years. Burke retired in 1996 and was named Professor Emeritus, where he continued to serve as the historian for the Department until his death.

Burke was instrumental in the teaching program at TAMU entomology. For many years, he taught the entire insect systematics curriculum, which included graduate and undergraduate courses in biodiversity, the principles of systematic entomology, and phylogeny and classification of insects. He continued teaching part of the systematics curriculum after other systematics faculty joined the department.

To this day, his former students still remember and remark on the difficulty and challenging nature of “Burke’s classes” and note, in retrospect, just how much they gained by having had Burke as a professor and mentor. Burke advanced to Professor in 1969 and later served as Associate Department Head. In 1975, he was chosen as the Outstanding Professor in the Department for his exceptional teaching efforts.

Throughout his career Burke has encouraged his graduate students to undertake fieldwork, stressing the need to know one’s research subject in the field and encouraged the development of high-quality research collections, consisting of well-prepared specimens in series with host data. Later in his tenure, Burke was instrumental in formulating the modern systematics curriculum that is currently in place in the department.

The major emphasis of Burke’s research career has been on the systematics and biology of the weevil family Curculionidae, specializing on the tribe Anthonomini, which is a speciose and poorly known group of mostly tropical weevils that includes the boll weevil.

Burke and his associates studied the boll weevil (Anthonomus grandis) on its native host plants in Mexico, which subsequently opened multiple lines of research, including the revision of the systematics of the grandis group of Anthonomus. Most of the approximately 140 papers, reviews, and book chapters authored or coauthored by Horace deal with the systematics and biology of weevils.

Many of his publications on weevil morphology and systematics are well known. Among those are his treatises on the pupae and the larvae of the Anthonomini which taken together with his numerous subsequent papers on the subject make known the immature stages of more species of Anthonomini than for any other comparable group of weevils. Burke’s first paper on Anthonomini appeared in 1959 and his most recent in 2010. He has authored or coauthored 84 new species and three new genera. In addition to weevils, Horace has authored a few papers on other beetles other beetle families (Elmidae, Lycidae).

During his tenure as the Faculty Curator of the Texas A&M Insect Collection, Burke was instrumental in modernizing the collection storage systems, established a hard-money assistant curator position, designed the new quarters to house the collection (Room 216 in the Heep Center), received the first National Science Foundation collection improvement grant, and established of the first endowments for the collection.

As curator, the collection grew substantially from around 300,000 to over 1 million, with a significant portion of that growth being in Coleoptera. Burke emphasized to all personnel associated with the collection the need for high quality specimens and the importance of growing the collection in size and promoting its use. The collection was then, and remains now, heavily used by local, national and international researchers. The collection’s reputation and record of use is directly traced to Burke’s influence.

Burke also served as the Departmental representative and advisor to the TAMU Library Systems (1960-1991), where he developed the campus library’s holdings of entomological literature. In 1979, he was instrumental in creating the first copy of Curculio, a newsletter directed at an international audience of weevil workers, which was the longest running taxon-specific newsletters in coleopterology.

Burkes’ passion for natural history exploration can be viewed as Sam Houston State recently opened the Horace R. Burke Library of Natural History Exploration inside of the Sam Houston State Natural History Museum. The collection houses more than 4,000 books on natural history that Burke had donated and can be considered a valuable resource for biologists and other persons interested in natural history.

New AgriLife Research scientists take aim at Zika

September 2, 2016 by Rob Williams

By Steve Byrns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

The Texas A&M AgriLife Research Zika team is headed by Dr. Kevin Myles, left, and Dr. Zach Adelman. (Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service photo by Rob Williams)

COLLEGE STATION – Today’s news is flooded with reports on Zika; none of them good…until now.

Texas A&M AgriLife Research has fielded a Zika team led by two scientists who joined the department of entomology at Texas A&M University on Aug. 1, said Dr. David Ragsdale, department head at College Station.

Dr. Zach Adelman and Dr. Kevin Myles were previously at Virginia Tech and now join the ranks of a number of AgriLife Research personnel whose priority has become stopping Zika, he said.

“Dr. Adelman and Dr. Myles are longtime collaborators who have joined us here in College Station. Both men have earned world-renowned reputations for their work on viruses.

“Dr. Myles is working to understand the basic biology of how these viruses replicate in mosquitoes, while one of Dr. Adelman’s projects involves creating mosquitoes that are resistant to viruses such as Zika.”

The pair’s work will take mosquito management where it has never been before, Ragsdale said.

“They will address the mosquito and disease relationship in ways not previously considered,” he said. “Like all discovery science at the very edges of what we know, the outcomes are uncertain, but the potential for development of technologies that revolutionize mosquito and disease management is very real.”

Adelman said one of his primary goals is to develop new genetic technologies to help suppress or eliminate Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquito populations locally, nationally and beyond.

“As vectors of dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya and now Zika, it is clear that as long as these mosquitoes are allowed to persist in close proximity to humans, the litany of viruses will only continue to grow, and with it the burden on public health,” he said.

Myles said mosquito-borne diseases continue to cause unacceptable levels of loss in humans and domesticated animals and that globalization is increasingly blurring the traditional boundaries of these diseases.

“West Nile virus, first introduced in a 1999 outbreak in New York City, is now prevalent throughout the U.S.,” Myles said. “A more recent example is the emergence of Zika virus in Micronesia and the South Pacific with subsequent spread to the Americas.

“Pathogens like these are transmitted to humans when the virus is able to overcome the immune defenses of a mosquito vector. Thus, a primary focus of my laboratory is on understanding this process, with the goal of using this information to develop new genetic control strategies and novel vaccines.”

Intense media attention has made Zika a household word to many Texans. The mosquito-transmitted Zika virus is a serious threat to the health of unborn babies. Women infected by the virus while pregnant are known to have babies with microcephaly, a condition where the fetal brain and head do not fully develop and reach normal size.

A. aegypti and A. albopictus, the mosquitoes capable of transmitting Zika, occur commonly in residential areas where they use even small amounts of standing water to reproduce, Ragsdale said. Aedes mosquitoes infected with Zika are hard to detect, so health officials will have to rely on actual human cases to identify hot spots once the virus arrives in native mosquito populations.

“We’re now seeing media reports of confirmed Zika cases stemming from homegrown mosquitoes in Florida,” he said. “There have been a number of cases reported in Texas, but those were related to foreign travel, so confirmation of Zika in native mosquito populations is a concern our scientists are urgently seeking to thwart.”

Ragsdale noted that as of this writing, there have been no known cases of Zika stemming from native mosquito populations in Texas.

“This is an insidious virus because people can have it and never know it,” Ragsdale said.

He said some travelers to Zika-infested countries are unknowingly coming home infected with the virus. When Aedes mosquitoes bite infected people, the insects acquire the virus. The mosquito then bites another person, transmitting the virus to that previously uninfected person.

“As it stands now, the best defense is to keep from getting bitten by mosquitoes both here and abroad, although that’s a pretty tall order for most outdoor-loving Texans.

“Soon though, it is our hope the energy and knowledge these two researchers bring to our top team of AgriLife Research entomologists will result in scientific breakthroughs in ridding the country of the Zika virus and quite possibly other mosquito-borne diseases as well.”