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COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Two of the Department’s graduate students received high honors from the Department for their outstanding research and service as they were honored during a special seminar on Thursday.

Marion Le Gall received the Outstanding Ph.D. Student and Milo Lewis was honored with the Outstanding Masters student Award during the special presentation.

Le Gall is currently working in Dr. Spence Behmer’s lab, where she is examining how interactions between macro nutrients and allelochemicals influence feeding behavior and nutrient utilization in insect herbivores.

Le Gall also has been working as a teaching assistant for several courses including General Entomology (ENTO 201) and Insect Physiology (ENTO 306), as well as giving lectures in the 201 course. She has been instrumental in creating and organizing a “digital storytelling project” exercise where students use computer-based tools to tell a short video story to integrate into the lab portion of the ENTO 306 course.

Since coming to Texas A&M in spring of 2009 from the University of Tours in France, Le Gall has served several officer positions with the EGSO, including social chair, vice president, seminar chair and secretary. She has also been instrumental in organizing several activities, including the ENTOBLITZ, the insect collecting trip for professionals and amateurs in the State of Texas, the first-ever inter-departmental soccer tournament against Wildlife and Fisheries Science, as well as departmental fall picnics and various other outreach events.

Marion has  given multiple talks on campus, including three Entomology Graduate Student forums, an invited Departmental Seminar, two Ecological Integration Symposiums, and one presentation at Student Research Week). She was awarded first place (2012), and third place (2011 & 2013), at the Entomology Graduate Student Forum, and was awarded the best talk at the 2013 Ecological Integration Symposium. Le Gall also had two papers published in 2013: one in the Journal of Experimental Biology (work from her M.S.) and one in Metaleptea , which is a non-peer-reviewed journal.

“Marion is an exemplary graduate student, and a perfect example of what the Department of Entomology wants its students to be,” Behmer said. “She gives generously of her time to promote our Department (as well as Texas A&M University), plus the field of entomology, is excellent in the classroom (including as an instructor), and is passionate about her research.”

Lewis currently is working on his Master’s in Dr. Kevin Heinz’s lab researching the physiological ecology of the potato psyllid. He is developing a degree-day model for the psyllid as a means of predicting key events within the psyllid’s population dynamics. The nominator in the packet states that completion of his thesis would help to provide growers with a tool that will allow them to transition away from calendar-based insecticide applications.

The research conducted by Lewis has translated into co-authorship of 3 peer-reviewed manuscripts in three distinctly different journals; Aquatic Botany, Environmental Entomology, and Crop Protection. He is the co-author of 1 editor-reviewed manuscript and 2 research reports. He has co-authored 5 oral and 7 poster presentations, and of these he has delivered 2 of the oral and 6 of the poster presentations.

During his career Lewis has already received two awards of recognition for his research accomplishments; one as an undergraduate student and one as a graduate student. He has also competed successfully for an Entomology Student Enhancement Fund Scholarship ($225) and an Amarillo Research and Extension Center Award for Excellence ($1,000).

Lewis serves in an elected capacity as the 2013-14 treasurer of the Entomology Graduate Student Organization and is also active as a member of the Gamma Sigma Delta Agricultural Honor Society, the Entomological Society of America, the Texas Plant Protection Association, the USDA-SCRI Zebra Chip Working Group, and previously in the American Society of Plant Biologists.

“I am impressed with his work ethic, personality, and interest in entomology, said Professor Dr. Gerry Michels. “His MS program results will be outstanding and will lead to the development of major components of potato psyllid IPM and zebra chip control.”

 

 

 

by Robert Burns, Texas A&M AgriLife Communications

OVERTON – Will the extremely cold weather Texas experienced recently have any effect on insect populations this spring?

Probably not, said Erfan Vafaie, Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service integrated pest management specialist at Overton.

“It depends upon the insect,” said Vafaie.

Red imported fire ants, for example, burrow down so deeply in the soil that they’re unlikely to be affected by cold weather, Vafaie said.

“They tend to be quite ‘insulated’, if you will, from the extreme temperature changes — unless there’s a very long sustained cold, which may slowly make its way down into the depths,” he said.

It’s been suggested by other entomologists, Vafaie said, that a colder winter may reduce the populations of mosquito species that carry West Nile virus during the following summer.

“However, we don’t know for a certainty, and since this winter has been quite a unique one in Texas, we’ll have to wait and see how insect populations have been affected.”

What is known is that insects generally have several biological mechanisms for dealing with cold weather, even extremely frigid weather like large parts of Texas had in late December.

Vafaie’s previous work under the supervision of Dr. Brent Sinclair, a prominent insect low-temperature biologist in Ontario, Canada, gave him a strong foundation and knowledge on insect cold tolerance, he said.

“There are many places that often experience much cooler climates than Texas, such as Toronto, that had below minus 20 this December,” Vafaie said. “Although it may seem as though our little insect friends would not be able to live at such low temperatures, many have adapted the ability to survive in such environments.”

Generally speaking, insects have three main strategies for dealing with the cold: freeze tolerance, freeze avoidance and migration, he said.

“Internal ice formation would kill most organisms, but some insects have specialized mechanisms to deal with ice,” Vafaie said. “Some insects, such as the woolly bear, a moth larva, and goldenrod gall fly larvae, can tolerate freezing by the use of specialized proteins.”

He noted that though such insects are termed “freeze tolerant,” if they are taken from the field during the summer and placed in a freezer, they aren’t likely to survive.

“Typically, certain environmental cues are involved. For example, shorter days and cooling temperatures may induce mechanisms that help the insect tolerate freezing,” Vafaie said. “When the weather warms back up, they thaw and become active again.” Other insects cannot tolerate freezing, but have other mechanisms to prevent ice formation in their cells, he said.

“We call 32 Fahrenheit the freezing point of water, but the temperature at which ice forms depends on the content of the solution,” Vafaie said. “For example, saltwater at a concentration of 23.3 percent may not freeze until the temperature is minus 6 degrees Fahrenheit. In the same way, some insects use certain compounds called ‘cryoprotectants,’ similar to the ethylene glycol found in your car’s antifreeze, that lower the temperature at which freezing occurs. This helps them survive at subfreezing temperatures.”

The third strategy, migration, is also commonly used by some species of insects. In East Texas, one of the most common examples of this strategy is the fall armyworm, he said.

The fall armyworm is actually the larval form of a migrating moth, he said.

Fall armyworm moths migrate in the millions northward from South Texas in the spring and summer. Upon arrival, each moth will deposit a clump of 50 or more eggs on individual blades of grass. When the eggs hatch, the larva quickly go on maneuvers en masse for food. They will move across pastures, devouring wide swathes of grass in their wake, like an advancing army, hence their name.

Another migratory example is the monarch butterfly, Vafaie said.

“Monarchs migrate to Mexico and Southern California every winter,” he said.

One thing that may defeat many of these survival strategies, however, is when there are multiple incidences of very cold weather with warm temperatures in between. Such rollercoaster weather can decrease insect survival or reproductive potential, according to Vafaie.

“It’s not that they don’t have strategies adapted to deal with frequent temperature variations; it just comes at a cost, for example survival or reproduction,” he said.

But even when winter knocks back survival numbers, nature has a way of adjusting, Vafaie said.

“Due to the relatively short generation time of some of our biggest pests, like aphids, whiteflies and mites, their populations can grow exponentially even if winter survival is low.”

COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Master’s candidate Paula Castillo’s research on fire ant neurochemistry and caste system has received her third place prize in the Junior Graduate Student category at a campuswide poster competition.

Castillo received the award during the Texas A&M Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience & Texas A&M Institute for Neuroscience’s 2013-2014 Poster Session at the Interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building on Wednesday, January 29.

The award was given for her poster titled “Differences in sNPF receptor-expressing neurons in brains of fire ant (Solenopsis invicta Buren) worker subcastes: indicators for division of labor and nutritional status?”

Castillo’s goal is to contribute to the general understanding of the ant’s biology and, specifically, how the brain regulates the ants’ behavior, nutrition and reproduction.

Castillo’s research looks at the neuronal and molecular mechanisms related to the divison of labor in worker fire ants (Solenopsis invicta Buren) and how they are performing different tasks loosely associated with their size. She is investigating that short neuropeptide F signaling system could be involved in mechanism of worker division of labor and sensing of the colony nutritional requirements.

The results from this study suggests that the short neuropeptide F signal system could be involved in regulating behaviors that are associated with the subcastes, including nutrient sensing and/or brood care, feeding and locomotion. Castillo said the knowledge obtained from the results would help in the future to develop newer, more efficient strategies in controlling the ants’ population and dispersal.

“I was really surprised, because the competition was hard, and all the topics of the posters presented were really interesting,” she said.  “For me, it was an honor to obtain this recognition from the society of neurosciences of Texas A&M University.”

Castillo received her Bachelor of Science degree in biochemistry from the University of Santiago in Santiago, Chile.

“I am proud of Paula because there were 15 posters competing in her category (Junior scientist),” professor and Castillo’s principal investigator Dr. Patricia Pietrantonio said. “The award also reflects the recognition by the TAMU neurobiology community that the discovery in fire ants linking colony nutritional status with differential spatial localization of a neuropeptide receptor in the brain in worker subcastes is an important step towards understanding the control of nutrient-seeking or nutrient-sensing behaviors in social insects.”

Funding for this research was from grants NSF-IOS-1257837 and the Fire Ant Research and Management Project, Texas AgriLife Research, to Patricia V. Pietrantonio.

Castillo is currently enrolled in the M.S. Program in Entomology at TAMU.

AUSTIN, Texas — A well-known former professor was recently named a legend by the Plant-Insect Ecosystems (PIE) section of the  Entomological Society of America. The award recognizes entomologists for their outstanding contributions to the science of entomology and as their role as a student mentor.

Professor Emeritus Dr. George Teetes was the third Legends after announcement during the P-IE’s annual networking session at the ESA Annual Meeting in Austin in November of 2013.

During his 36 years as a professor, Dr. Teetes identified and deployed insect-resistant sorghums pivotal to successful integrated pest management programs in Texas and worldwide.  In addition to IPM programs, Teetes has written over 300 publications on sorghum insect management and was a co-founder of the US-AID INTSORMIL projects.

According to the organization’s site, the US-AID INTSORMIL projects help enhance the research capacity of agricultural research institutions in food deficit countries and to focus this increased capability on ensuring national food security through the alleviation of constraints that limit the sustainable production of sorghum, millet and other grains.

Teetes taught the Field Crop Insects course for 25 years and advised more than 40 graduate students.  In his teaching career he received numerous awards, including being honored with the 1979, 1981, and 1991 Outstanding Entomology Professor Award given annually by The Undergraduate Entomology Student Organization (UESO) at Texas A&M University.

Dedicated to his profession, Dr. Teetes’ service was highlighted by his roles as President of the American Registry of Professional Entomologists (1990) (forerunner of the current Board Certified Entomology program conducted by the Entomological Society of America) and President of the Entomological Society of America (1994). He was also named Fellow of the Entomological Society of America in 1996 for his outstanding contributions to entomology.

Some of the advice Teetes gave his students includes always striving for perfection and being prepared and that the quality of the work they do reflects on them and to network.

“I am honored and humbled by the efforts of my former students to nominate me for the P-IE Section award,” he said. “The thought they would do so is significantly rewarding.”