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AUSTIN—It looks like the spring semester 2017 is going well for the Department as several students, staff and faculty members received awards during the 2017 Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society of America meeting in Austin from April 11-17.

Ph.D. students Carl Hjelmen and Adrian Fisher were co-recipients for first place in the Ph.D. Oral Presentation category. Hjelmen was recognized for his presentation titled “What is underreplication and how does this phenomenon contribute to the enigma of genome size evolution in Drosophila?” Fisher was awarded for his presentation titled “The negative effects of in-hive pesticides on honey bee (Apis mellifera) drone spermatozoa viability.”

Ph.D. student Chloë Hawkings also received third place in the category for her presentation titled “The influence of brood on transcriptional variation in the worker brain of the red imported fire ant (Solenopsis invicta).”

“Carl has worked hard to analyze genome size data in an original and meaningful way.  It is to his credit that he can communicate what he has discovered to a broad audience,” Hjelmen’s mentor Dr. Spencer Johnston said. “I am really pleased to see his communication skills and his interesting results recognized with a first place award for his Ph. D. presentation at the Southwestern ESA branch meetings.”

Hawkings’ mentor Dr. Cecilia Tamborindeguy was excited about her receiving the award and praised her hard work and dedication working on her project.

“Chloë did a great job with her presentation and was very prepared,” said Hawkings’ mentor Dr. Cecilia Tamborindeguy. “I am very proud of her.”

Ph.D. student Luke Pruter received first place in the Ph.D Poster competition for his poster titled “Corn Hybrid and Bt transgene Performance in Yield and Protection from Pre-harvest Losses Caused by Lepidopteran Feeding”  while Masters student Charluz Rosario received third place for her poster titled “Screening of novel antigens for the control of Boophilus microplus through artificial feeding.”

Extension Agent-IPM John David Gonzales won second place in the Masters presenation category for his talk titled “Evaluating insecticide efficacy and residual activity for control of the sugarcane aphid Melanaphis sacchari (Zehntner).”

In the Undergraduate Oral Presentation category, senior Shelby Kilpatrick received second place for her talk titled “Density-dependent phenotypic plasticity in Schistocerca lineata Scudder, 1899 (Orthoptera: Acrididae).

Kilpatrick also received two special awards during the meeting, including the Percival Scientific Undergraduate Entomology Student Activity Award and the Undergraduate Student Achievement in Entomology Award.

The awards were presented in honor of Kilpatrick’s outstanding achievements during her undergraduate career in her research and outreach programs. Kilpatrick was most noted in her research studies in 2015 as she discovered a new species of halictid bee during a summer study abroad program in Dominica. Her discovery was a separate study that was featured in a paper written by Dr. Jason Gibbs of Michigan State University, as well as the species being named in her honor.

Kilpatrick also has been active in the Undergraduate Entomology Student Organization, the Collegiate 4-H Club, and the Horticulture Club while at A&M. She served as the organization’s Outreach Coordinator in 2015-2016, where she was responsible for coordinating volunteers for various outreach programs, such as Aggieland Saturday, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ annual Tailgate, and the Department’s 4-H and FFA Insect Identification clinic.

As a member of the 4-H club, she coordinated and led 8 club promotional events and volunteered at Texas 4-H Teen Retreat, Texas 4-H Roundup events, and the Beefmasters Programs. As a member of the Horticulture Club, Kilpatrick has helped plan and implement the Fall Pecan Sale, Pecan Tree Repotting, and the Spring Plant Fair.

“I am very honored to have been recognized by the Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society of America (SWB-ESA) for each of these awards. It has been a privilege to serve the SWB-ESA during my undergraduate career,” Kilpatrick said. “Attending branch meetings has also allowed me to enhance my knowledge and experiences that will contribute to my graduate studies and eventually, my career within entomology.”

Chong Chin Heo received the ESA’s John Henry Comstock Award. Heo is a former lab member in Dr. Jeffery Tomberlin’s lab. His research project was titled was titled “Sensitivity of Arthropod and Microbial Communities Associated with Vertebrate Carrion in Response to Delayed Blow Fly Access: Implication for Carrion Ecology and Forensic Entomology”. His research was in collaboration with Dr. Tawni Crippen – USDA – ARS and Dr. Jacqueline Ann Aitkenhead-Peterson from the Department of Soil and Crop Sciences, Texas A&M University.

The Comstock Award recognizes the accomplishments in research, service, and public engagement of one graduate student in each branch. The award helps support funding for travel to attend the annual meeting of the Entomological Society of America, which will be in Denver in November.

“I was really excited to see Chin receive such a great award. He was an exceptional student, and I am sure he will be an exceptional faculty member at his institution,” Heo’s former mentor Dr. Jeff Tomberlin said. “Chin has become a close friend and colleague. My hope is we continue to collaborate over the course of our careers.”

Heo graduated with his Ph.D. in August 2016 and is currently working in Malaysia.

Professor and Extension Specialist, and Associate Department Head for Extension Programs Dr. Charles Allen also was recognized during the ceremony as the Southwestern Branch nominee for the ESA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in Extension. He was nominated for his excellent work as the Associate Department Head for Extension Programs, and as the previous integrated pest management program coordinator. The award will be given out at the national meeting in November.

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension’s Arbovirus (Arthropod Borne Virus) Team received the Southern Region IPM’s special Friends of IPM Award during the ceremony. The team includes Dr. Sonja Swiger, Dr. Mike Merchant, Dr. Holly Jarvis Whitaker, Steve Byrns, Diane Bowen, Bill Watson, Wizzie Brown, and Molly Keck and Robin Williams.

The team was awarded the special recognition for their work on developing, distributing, and providing educational materials to help protect Texans from the West Nile and Zika Virus outbreaks that have occurred from 2012 to 2016.

The Undergraduate Linnaean Team also fared very well during the branch Linnaean Games, where they received second place after defeating the graduate team in the finals. The team consisted of undergraduate students Shelby Kilpatrick, Bret Nash, Sam Shook, Dayvion Adams and Jeffrey Barbosa.

The team will be advancing to the national Linnaean Games in November at the ESA’s annual meeting in early November.

“I am incredibly proud of these students, as they outcompeted even our graduate team in double elimination rounds,” Linnaean Team coach Dr. Juliana Rangel said. “I can’t wait to help them practice for the national games.”

Kilpatrick was excited about getting the opportunity to travel to Denver to compete in the national Linnaean Games.

“I am very proud of my team and how we all contributed to winning 2nd Place at the SWB-ESA Meeting as well as the opportunity to advance to the national games in Denver, Colorado this November,” she said.

In the Southwestern Branch’s Photo Salon, Dr. Forrest Mitchell won Best Traditional Macro and Arthropods in Action while Abdul Hakeem won

Microphotography and Pierre Lau won for Artistic and Best Overall.

By Steve Byrns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

SAN ANGELO – SPLAT! West Texas honey bees are on the move, so motorists shouldn’t be surprised if their windshields are strafed by a hapless swarm in coming weeks, said a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service entomologist.

Dr. Charles Allen, of San Angelo, said the unusually warm February, touted as the warmest on record here, has put honey bees in the mood to travel.

“It’s a sign spring has arrived, at least to the bees,” Allen said. “Usually the number of swarms goes up if the area had sufficient rainfall the previous fall, a situation much of Texas enjoyed.”

Allen said the itch to move can stem from a number of factors. Overcrowding in the colony, warm temperatures, a shortage of food, sudden availability of nectar and pollen, or even the presence of honey bee parasites can cause honey bees to swarm.

“But beyond these factors, swarming is the primary way honey bees increase the number of colonies in an area and spread to new areas,” he said. “Typically, the old queen and about 60 percent of the bees in a colony leave, while the remaining bees stay and raise a new queen”

Swarms fly from the colony and usually collect in a high place not too far from their former home, he said. There, they form a ball or mass of bees attached to a branch or other structure with the queen safely in the middle. From the mass, scout bees can be seen coming and going in search of a new home. Swarms may stay for only a short time, or as long as a day or two, depending on the length of time it takes to find suitable new quarters.

“It is a common misconception that swarms are dangerous to people,” Allen said. “Though a swarm may appear as a fearsome seething mass of angry insects to the uninformed, the truth is that bees, and wasps too for that matter, sting almost exclusively to defend their young or brood. Swarms don’t have ‘baby bees’ to protect, so even the most irritable, pugnacious Africanized honey bees are docile during a swarm. Like the boll weevil in the old song, swarming honeybees are ‘just huntin’ a home.’”

Allen warns that in Texas most wild bees nowadays are Africanized, so as soon as the queen starts laying eggs and a brood starts to develop, their attitude quickly shifts. The workers, now with young to protect, will become defensive and will attack anything they see as a threat.

Because of the hyper-aggressive African genetic makeup most wild honey bees now have, elimination or removal by a beekeeper in and around homes is a “must do” to keep families and pets from being stung, Allen said.

“Since bees do not orient well in darkness, late evening, early morning or the middle of the night are good times to remove or eliminate wild bee colonies near homes, “ Allen said. “Honey bees need polarized light such as the sun provides, to be able to locate things. So a flashlight, which does not emit polarized light, works well in the dark as the bees are unable to orient in its light. And since they are cold blooded and less active when the temperature is cold, removal or elimination is less dangerous on a cool to cold night.”

Allen said he does not advocate destroying colonies unless there is a danger to humans, livestock or pets. He said some AgriLife Extension offices have a list of beekeepers who might be contacted for bee removal. Barring that, most exterminators also deal with bee issues.

 

by Steve Byrns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Texas A&M AgriLife recently received a substantial monetary boost to bolster its aggressive fight to stem the spread of vector-borne diseases for the public good, said Dr. David Ragsdale, Texas A&M University entomology department head at College Station.

Ragsdale said the $10 million five-year grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be used to establish the Western Gulf Coast Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases.

The Western Gulf Coast Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases is a virtual center partnership with the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston serving as the lead institution, Ragsdale said. Dr. Scott Weaver, director of the UTMB Institute for Human Infections and Immunity and scientific director of the Galveston National Laboratory, is the project director.

“Texas A&M is involved in all aspects of the center which has three main objectives,” Ragsdale said. “They include a research program to answer specific questions about the mosquito and the viruses they transmit, an educational program to develop the next generation of vector biologists to fill positions in private industry, local, state, and national labs where vector borne-diseases are diagnosed and action plans are developed, and finally, there is an Extension education program that is targeting the public with reliable information about mosquito control and the diseases they spread.

“The Extension program will also inform cities and their staffs on how to properly conduct mosquito surveillance and control.

“The center’s task is to proactively find ways to stop the spread of vector-borne diseases,” Ragsdale said. “Texas A&M AgriLife Research and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston head the large collaboration of partners to achieve that primary mission.”

The center’s partners include public health organizations, top academic institutions and educational agencies, and internationally recognized experts in vector biology, epidemiology, ecology and vector-borne diseases, Ragsdale said.

Along with Texas A&M AgriLife Research and the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, those experts hail from the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, University of Houston, Vanderbilt University and the University of Texas at El Paso. There are also experts from six public health agencies and the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Ragsdale said Texas, especially the Rio Grande Valley, is the ideal region for the unique effort because the U.S. – Mexico border serves as the gateway for many vector-borne diseases entering the U.S.

“Actually it is not the border as much as it is the subtropical climate that is the real issue,” Ragsdale said. “The border is less of an issue except it’s true there are a lot of travel-related disease cases in this part of Texas and too, the right mosquito is there to cause local transmission problems. But regardless, this new center is meant to enhance both the regional and national capacity to anticipate, prevent and control emerging and exotic vector-borne disease.”

Ragsdale said destructive viruses spread by mosquitoes and tick vectors – including dengue, chikungunya, West Nile virus, Zika and a host of others – have a history of arriving, spreading or re-emerging in the U.S.

Despite ample warning, the U.S. has had little success in protecting vulnerable populations and preventing these vector-borne diseases from spreading, he said.

“Failures stem from a variety of problems,” Ragsdale said. “But two of the main issues are the difficulties in controlling the A. aegypti mosquito, the main culprit in the spread of many of these diseases, and the decline in public health preparedness in recent decades.”

To remedy the ever-growing situation, the newly acquired funds will be used to:

• Support applied research to create new methods of vector and disease control.
• Translate scientific advances into real-world tools for the benefit of the public.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration among academic institutions, public health agencies, federal institutions and communities vital in controlling vector-borne diseases.
• Create an ongoing feedback loop between community needs and translational research results.
• Train the next generation of leaders in public health entomology.

“The ultimate goal is to develop a fluid interchange among applied research, communities of practice, and student and in-service education,” Ragsdale said. “By doing so, the Western Gulf Coast Center of Excellence for Vector-Borne Diseases will produce greatly improved methods and capacity to respond to mosquito and tick-borne diseases.

“The improved predictive, surveillance and control methods, including the training of entomologists and the strengthening of public health partnerships, will have lasting impacts on the control of vector-borne diseases and human health now and into the future.”

Three Texas A&M AgriLife Research and Extension personnel had a great summer as they received top awards during two statewide meetings held in July.

Extension Agent-IPM Blayne Reed received the Texas Corn Producers’ Outstanding Corn Agent award at the Texas County Agricultural Agents Association’s annual meeting on Wednesday, July 20, 2016. Reed covers Hale, Swisher and Floyd Counties.

The award honored Reed’s outstanding work in educating producers in the areas of pre-plant decisions, hybrid selection, insect management and fertility of crops. Reed also was a part of a team of agents and specialists that worked to determine economic thresholds and control measures that were specifically for the Texas High Plains.

Some of the educational events Reed conducted included presentations on water management, insect management, drift issues and IPM strategies in corn and other crops affecting his area. Post-survey results showed that Reed’s programs have helped increase producers knowledge by 36% with face-to-face programs and 79% of producers indicated in the survey said they would adopt the practices taught.

“He is a tremendous team player and assists in mentoring agents in agriculture in his three counties,” Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service North Region program director Danny Nusser said. “Blayne does an outstanding job of utilizing resources and partnering with individuals such as seed companies, chemical companies, producer associations, Extension specialists, AgriLife researchers, local businesses, consultants, and many others to make programs successful.”

Reed was very excited about the award and appreciated all the people that helped him to get where he is today.

“It is certainly a surprise and a great honor.  The Texas Corn Producers is the corn producer representative organization in Texas that promotes the improvement and production of corn from IPM and agronomic standpoints but is just as active on the legislative fronts,” Reed said.  “The Corn Producers are one of Texas A&M AgriLife Extension’s key cooperating commodity partners in the field for the improvement and protection of corn production and other crops for our joint customer base.”

Extension Agent – IPM Kerry Siders also received the Outstanding Grain Sorghum Agent Award from the Texas Grain Sorghum Producers Association during the meeting for his hard work and dedication in educating producers about pests and other issues with sorghum crops.

Siders was instrumental in helping producers raise awareness and educate sorghum producers about sugarcane aphids, pest management, as well as sorghum production issues. He has produced 28 radio program presentations, 22 newsletter articles related to sorghum issues, and conducted 13 producer meetings.

“Because of these efforts of Kerry Siders and his committee, Extension programs are making a difference in sorghum education for producers and increasing opportunities to improve their economic bottom line,” Nusser said. “Kerry does an outstanding job with Extension specialists, AgriLife researchers, local businesses, consultants, and many others to make programs successful.”

“It is great to receive any award in Extension. Sometimes the “thank you” and an occasional award is what lets us know we are appreciated and needed by our clientele. I consider myself a “cotton agent” but I service many other crops and clientele needs,” Siders said. “Sorghum is an important commodity in my service area. Production issues we have addressed through the years, and then particularly last year with the advent of the sugarcane aphid, have been made simply to help grain producers be productive and sustainable. I think this recognition really speaks to the team effort of our Entomologists on the High Plains.”

Texas AgriLife Research professor M.O. Way was honored with the 2016 Honorary Lone Star FFA Degree during the statewide FFA Convention on July 11-15.

Way received the award for his work on coordinating the Texas Rice Education Contest that is held annually at the Rice Festival in Beaumont for youths active in either 4-H club or FFA chapter.

For nine years, Way had been working the contest. During the contest, youths take a comprehensive written test that covers topics such as rice plant identification, pests, management, and weeds.

Way said the contest is a tool to teach youths on rice and rice production in the state with an emphasis on science and math, as well as agriculture.

“I am really honored about receiving the award,” Way said. “It’s all about the kids and trying to get them interested in entomology and other STEM disciplines. Some of the winners have gone on to A&M and other good universities and majored in ag-related subjects.”