Rob Williams

Grad Students Honored with Awards During Seminar

February 25, 2016 by Rob Williams

Carl Hjelmen, right, receiving the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award from Entomology Department Head Dr. David Ragsdale, left. Photo by Rob Williams — Carl Hjelmen, right, receiving the Outstanding Ph.D. Student Award from Entomology Department Head Dr. David Ragsdale. Photo by Rob Williams

COLLEGE STATION, Texas –The Department of Entomology would like to congratulate two of our grad students as they received top honors during the department’s spring seminar series on February 18.

Ph.D. student Carl Hjelmen received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student while Devin Beach Tillman received the Outstanding Masters Student Award during the special presentation.

Hjelmen is advised by Dr. Spencer Johnston and is currently researching the evolution of genome size in Drosophila species. Hjelmen is a member of the Graduate Entomology Student Organization, where he is serving as the organization’s vice president. He also has served as the chair of the Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society’s annual Photo Salon for two years and was Social Activities Chair of the EGSO for a year.

He has been active in several outreach programs, including Creek View Elementary, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences tailgate, and the Boonville Days at the Brazos Center. Hjelmen also has represented the Department at the Entomological Society of America meetings, as well as the Ecological Integration Symposium and Texas A&M’s annual Student Research Week.

Hjelmen was a participant in Texas A&M Research Experience for Undergraduates – Expanding Scientific Investigation Through Entomology (REU-EXCITE) during the summer of 2012.

“Carl is the best student I have had the pleasure of directing and is very deserving of this year’s outstanding graduate student award,” Johnston said.

Tillman is mentored by Dr. Cecilia Tamborindeguy and is researching the interaction between sugarcane aphids and sorghum plants.

Tillman has been a teaching assistant for several classes, including ENTO 201 (General Entomology) and Applied Forensic Entomology courses (ENTO/FIVS 432), and the Dominica Study Abroad program. She also served as a Texas A&M transfer ambassador in 2012 and a Blinn Ambassador in 2011.

She also was a member of the TAMU Department of Entomology Scholars Society, where she has represented the Department during different activities and has been a liaison between faculty, staff, students, and prospective students.

Tillman was an active member of the Undergraduate Entomology Student Organization and the Forensic and Investigative Sciences Student Organization. She has served as the treasurer of the Undergraduate Entomology Student Organization from 2010-2014, Activities Coordinator for AFIS from 2013-2014 and Vice President from 2012-2013.

Tillman received numerous awards and scholarships during her college career, including the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ Diversity Excellence Award, the Perry L. Adkissson, Roger Meola Memorial Scholarship and the COALS International Studies Scholarship.

“Devin has managed an incredible task, she has excelled in every single objective she has set up for her future, and that includes also a good balance between her professional and personal life,” Tamborindeguy said. “Devin will be an amazing role model for our future students.”

Valencia and Shaffner Receive Top Departmental Awards

February 18, 2016 by Rob Williams

DeptAwrdCover2-16 — Cesar Valencia, left, received the Department of Entomology Staff Meritorious Service Award from Department Head Dr. David Ragsdale. Photo by Rob Williams.

COLLEGE STATION — Congratulations to Cesar Valencia and Joe Schaffner in receiving the Department of Entomology’s top awards for the year during the February faculty meeting on February 11.

Valencia received the Department’s Staff Meritorious Service Award while Schaffner was given the Lifetime Achievement award during the meeting.

Valencia is a lab and field manager for Dr. Greg Sword’s lab and also serves as the proctor of the Entomological Research Laboratory, which houses various labs and offices for the Department.

He is responsible for several tasks in the lab, including various administrative functions, such as purchasing, procurement and obtaining USDA permits, and logistical, as well as personnel supervision and general research.

Valencia was also an Extension Assistant for the Department of Entomology in College Station for 5 years. As an Extension Assistant under Dr. Carlos Bogran, he was in charge of the statewide bark and longhorn beetle survey attacking trees in Texas. He also conducted various assays on greenhouse insecticides and testing new molecules against major pests that attack ornamental plants.

In the nomination letter, Sword praised Valencia for his help in growing the lab.

“The lab facility was completely empty and I had never conducted a cotton (or any other crop) field trial in my life,” Sword said. “Since starting, the lab has hosted over 35 postdocs, graduate students, undergrads and visiting scholars, obtained nearly $2.2 million in extramural funding, and been issued a U.S. patent. Cesar played critical roles in enabling all of these accomplishments by virtue of his organizational abilities and previous experience, particularly with agriculture in the field.”

“Cesar has been the glue that holds the lab together and keeps it running on a daily basis,” Sword said. “He never shuns the opportunity to take on new responsibilities, and equally if not important he constantly seeks new opportunities for additional training or projects to initiate in the lab.”

Schaffner-page pic — Joe Schaffner, left, received a plaque in recognition for his lifetime achievements during his career with the Department. Photo by Rob Williams

The Department also recognized Joe Schaffner with the Lifetime Achievement Award

Schaffner was hired as an Assistant Professor in our department in 1963. For several years he had responsibility for deciduous fruit tree entomology in Texas. He then moved through the ranks to become Professor, and retired and was awarded a Professor Emeritus in 1997. During this time he researched the systematics and taxonomy of true bugs, focusing on the Miridae, or plant bugs.

During his career, Schaffner also served for approximately 17 years as the Graduate Advisor for our department where he tirelessly worked to identify and recruit top prospects for our graduate program, and he stayed with them through the application process and their subsequent careers.

Students, particularly international students, remembered Schaffner as someone who was always willing to help them with anything that came up, and as someone that they could trust and always turn to for advice

Schaffner’s greatest contribution to the Department, and to the field of entomology, has been a lifetime of work in collecting, preparing, and curating a huge number of specimens of extremely high quality into the Texas A&M Insect Collection.

He was also well known for his extended collecting trips to Mexico, on which he took many students and colleagues, often providing students with their first experiences in international field work. Joe’s work in the Insect Collection has continued to the present (quite literally).

In addition, the Department recognized two faculty members for service, including Dr. Robert Coulson for 45 years with the Department, and Dr. John Oswald for 20 years.

Dr. Gabe Hamer Featured on KBTX about Zika Virus

February 11, 2016 by Rob Williams

Assistant Professor Dr. Gabe Hamer, along with KBTX-TV’s Chief Meteorologist Shel Winkley were interviewed by KBTX-TV’s Kathleen Witte during the station’s Focus At Four segment on February 10. During the interview, Hamer discussed the mosquitoes that are vectors for the Zika, which are Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, their habitats, and their distribution, as well as possible risk factors to the United States.

Texas A&M AgriLife Research Entomologists Co-Authors on Bed Bug Genome Mapping Paper

February 5, 2016 by Rob Williams

Cover_Benoit_Guenard_1-with text — Bed Bug. Photo by Benoit Guenard.

COLLEGE STATION – Two Texas A&M AgriLife Research entomologists were among a team of more than 80 international scientists whose work in sequencing the genome of the bed bug was published in the scientific journal Nature Communications on Feb. 2.

Dr. Ed Vargo, Texas A&M University Endowed Chair in Urban and structural Entomology, College Station, holds a bedbug sample while discussing recent genome mapping work. Photo by Steve Burns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications. — Dr. Ed Vargo, Texas A&M University Endowed Chair in Urban and structural Entomology, College Station, holds a bed bug sample while discussing recent genome mapping work. Photo by Steve Burns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications.

The AgriLife Research team members from College Station who were part of the two-year project are Dr. Ed Vargo, Endowed Chair in Urban and Structural Entomology headquartered in the Rollins Urban and Structural Entomology Facility, and Dr. Spencer Johnston in Texas A&M University’s department of entomology.

The paper, “Unique features of a global human ectoparasite identified through sequencing of the bed bug genome,” is available online at http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/ncomms10165 .

According to the paper, the bed bug, Cimex lectularius, has re-established itself as a human parasite throughout much of the world. The causes are linked to increased international travel and commerce and widespread insecticide resistance by the bug.

“Bed bugs are a big pest,” Vargo said. “They are very small insects, about the size of an apple seed, that have been associated with humans for a long, long time. They are unique in that they fill a very specific ecological niche and specialize in feeding almost exclusively on human blood.”

He said they are active at night and actually administer a slight anesthetic with each bite, which deadens the site so as to remain undetected. Reactions such as welts and itching can take a day or two to develop.

“They’ve been around for thousands of years, but with the advent of modern pesticides they all but disappeared from the industrialized world in the 1950s,” Vargo said. “So I grew up not really knowing about bed bugs except for the saying people had, ‘sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite.’ And that to me was cute but very foreign because I’d never experienced bed bugs.”

But in the last 20 years, Vargo said, they’ve come back with a vengeance and are now very prevalent as numerous media reports in recent years can attest. They are in all 50 states in the U.S. and are especially prevalent in low income housing and housing for the elderly.

“As far as we know, they do not vector any diseases,” Vargo said. “The bites can cause itching, even scarring in some cases, but psychologically they can have a big impact on people. It’s hard to sleep at night if you know the bed bugs are going to come out when the lights go out. Knowing they are there can be very anxiety producing for many people.”

Mapping the bed bug genome is a crucial step in regaining global control, Vargo said.

Genes are pieces of DNA within an organism that make it unique, he said. The genome can be likened to the animal’s personal blueprint for making a bed bug a bed bug. So by sequencing the DNA — obtaining the genome — the team of scientists have identified all the genes that are in a bed bug. They now know which genes are critical for their survival.

“So having the genome is a valuable resource that any researcher in the world now has access to,” Vargo said. “This whole approach of targeting genes in organisms for their control is being used across the spectrum of agriculture and urban entomology. This paper provides a publically accessible resource that scientists can use to develop new and specific targets for bed bug control.”

Johnston said that the paper focused on three areas of control: genetic responsibility for insecticide resistance, the bed bug’s preference for blood in its diet, and especially the genes that are responsible for the insect’s ability of finding only human hosts.

He also noted that the results from the research would greatly help speed efforts to find more effective control methods.

“There are closely related species that feed on other organisms. The bed bug is the only one that preys exclusively on man,” Johnston said. “The genes involved have now been identified and fully described. This will speed efforts to find compounds to confuse or confound the bed bug so it is no longer able to home in on its host.”

In the meantime, Vargo said, those suspecting a bed bug problem should contact a professional pest control operator, as very few people are successful in controlling the insects themselves.

Ph.D. Student Receives Award from Beltwide Cotton Conference

February 2, 2016 by Rob Williams

James Glover, center, with co-advisors Dr. Greg Sword, left, and Dr. Michael Brewer, right. Photo by Nichole Taillon.

The Department of Entomology would like to congratulate Ph.D. student James Glover for receiving the Best Ph.D. oral presentation prize in the Insect Management category at the Cotton Beltwide Conferences in New Orleans on January 5-7.

Glover received the award for his talk titled, “Comparing Boll Injury and EILs for Species of a Boll-Feeding Sucking Bug Complex (Hemiptera: Miridae and Pentatomidae) on South Texas Cotton.” Texas A&M AgriLife Research professor and co-mentor Dr. Mike Brewer said that Glover’s research is on the injury of cotton plants from a species complex of boll-feeding sucking bugs represented by one species of plant bugs and two species of stink bugs.

During his research, field collected stink bugs and verde plant bugs were used to infest cotton plants that were maintained free of insect injury. The plants were caged in different insect densities, including 0 for the control, 1 bug per cage, 4 bugs per cage and 8 bugs per cage. Each treatment was replicated 12 times across two bloom specific periods mid and late bloom.

Glover said that the bugs remained caged on the plants for 7 days then were terminated. After the infestation period, the plants or bolls were allowed to mature inside the cages. The response from the bolls, he said, included external and internal boll damage in the form of warts, galls, lint deterioration, and boll rot. The bolls were rated at harvest on a 0 to 4 scale, which corresponded to the number of damaged locules and the boll rot was scored by the visual presence or absence of diseased locules.

He said that significant boll injury differences were detected across species and yield and that insect density relationships were used to calculate and compare economic injury levels.

Brewer said that his research also included the assessment of economic damage and collaborative work with Gino Medrano of the USDA-ARS, about the insects’ transmission of cotton boll rot.

“James did a great job balancing the components of what makes for a solid field crops entomologist: he knew his cotton, he knew his science, and agricultural relevance to the topic,” Brewer said. “His work has direct implications in improving management of this pest complex in cotton grown along the Texas Gulf Coast, and contributes to understanding why ‘outbreaks of damage’ occur.”

Glover’s co-mentor Dr. Greg Sword also was proud of him and that he was the fourth person out of his lab to receive an award from the conference in the past four years.

“James is very thorough as a student, and that is reflected in the research his conducting. The work he presented at the Beltwide Conference to win this award was a well-designed field project that provides valuable information to help manage key sucking insects pests in Texas cotton.”