Entomology Stridulations: Autumn 2022

Bold indicates current department member or student. *Indicates former PhD/MS student, post-doc, visiting scholar, or undergraduate advised by CFAES Department of Entomology faculty.

Faculty

Grant Awards

Mary Gardiner, Jamie Strange, “DISES: Addressing dynamic landscape inequalities in human well-being and bee health by greening”, National Science Foundation, Dynamic Coupled Natural-Human Systems Program. $1,599,942 (09/01/2022-08/31/2027)

Mary Gardiner, Chris Riley*, “From twigs to trees: Harnessing vacant land for climate resilience and biodiversity conservation”, The MITRE Corporation. $400,050 (05/01/2022-04/30/2025)

Hongmei Li-Byarlay, Reed Johnson, “Biotic And Abiotic Stresses In Honey Bees And Pollinators”, National Institute of Food and Agriculture. $300,000

Megan Meuti, Mary Gardiner, “Evaluating the health and environmental impacts of mosquito management”. Engaged Scholarship Consortium. $5,000.

Andy Michel, “Remembering a forgotten pest: Bt resistance and monitoring in European Corn Borer”, National Institute of Food and Agriculture. $499,928. (09/01/2022-08/31/2025)

Andy Michel, Kelley Tilmon, “FORAGE: Fall armyworm outreach and research for alfalfa growers and educators”, National Institute of Food and Agriculture. $868,104. (09/01/2022-08/31/2025)

Pete Piermarini, “Developing botanical-derived chemical tools for controlling mosquito vectors”, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, R56AI158674. $648,358 (05/01/2022-04/30/2023)

Sarah Short “The effect of the microbiota on male Aedes aegypti life history traits”, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, R21AI174093. $433,125 (11/22/2022-10/24/2024)

Kelley Tilmon, “Monitoring and management of soybean insect pests”, Ohio Soybean Council. $60,000.

Kelley Tilmon, “Research and extension on emerging soybean pests in the North Central region”, North Central Soybean Research Program. $571,234.

Jamie Strange, “CRP impacts on habitat” Ohio State USDA Farm Service Agency. $166,478.

Honors

Megan Meuti, participant in the CFAES Strategic Alignment for Research Success (STARS) Program

Larry Phelan, keynote speaker, Workshop for Advanced Training, Center for Environmental & Sustainable Research. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Oct. 24, 2022. “Identifying first principles to redesign agroecosystems for sustainability and resilience”

CFAES Award Nominations

Mary Gardiner, Distinguished Graduate Student Mentor Award, Office of Research and Graduate Education

Reed Johnson, Distinguished Junior Faculty Research Award, Office of Research and Graduate Education

Megan Meuti, Distinguished Undergraduate Academic Advisor/Mentor Award, Office of Academic Programs

Ben Philip, Distinguished Teaching by a Lecturer Award, Office of Academic Programs

Pete Piermarini, Distinguished Teacher Award, Office of Academic Programs

Joe Raczkowski, Rodney F. Plimpton Distinguished Early Career Teacher Award, Office of Academic Programs

Sarah Short, Distinguished Early Career Extension Faculty Award, OSU Extension

Kelley Tilmon, Distinguished Extension Faculty Award, OSU Extension

Staff

Honors

Scott Wolfe, researcher 2, lab safety and building coordinator, Staff Career Development Grant, $1250 to attend the Conviron Service Technician Seminar

Sarah DeVilbiss, administrative assistant 4, CFAES Staff Advisory Council vice president

Maggie Lewis, NSF postdoctoral fellow, Entomological Society of America John Henry Comstock award

CFAES Award Nominations

Sarah DeVilbiss, administrative assistant 4, The Shirley Brooks-Jones Citizenship Award, CFAES Staff Advisory Council

Erin Parker, administrative assistant 2, Special Recognition, CFAES Staff Advisory Council

Jeni Ruisch, Insectary and BUGmobile outreach program director, Innovation Award, CFAES Staff Advisory Council

Graduate Students

Honors

Lydia Fyie, Advisor: Gardiner and Meuti. DeLong Award for Best Overall Student Presentation

Kyle Akred, Advisor: Tilmon. Root Award for Excellence in Agricultural and Urban Entomology: Agricultural Research

Carlee Shepard, Advisor: Gardiner. Root Award for Excellence in Agricultural and Urban Entomology: Urban Research

Olivia Lang, Advisors: Cañas, Leach and Michel. CFAES Graduate Student Advisory Committee Chair

Grant Awards & Fellowships

Michelle Pham, Advisor: Gardiner. Pollinator Health Travel Award, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative, $1,800

Dante Centuori, Advisor: Strange. University Fellowship and CFAES Director’s Fellowship

Lydia Fyie, Advisors: Gardiner and Meuti. Presidential Fellowship

Sarah Scott, Advisor: Gardiner. Royal Society Newton International Fellowship

Entomological Society of America Annual Research Competition Awards

Kyle Akred, Advisor: Tilmon. 1^st place, Ten Minute Paper (TMP) session, Plant-Insect Ecosystems (P-IE): IPM - Field Crops 2. “Determining the relationship between Asiatic garden beetle larval density and damage to field corn”

Lucy Guarnieri, Advisor: Gardiner. 1^st place, TMP session, Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology (MUVE) and P-IE: Biodiversity and Ecology. “Does tolerance to metal pollution facilitate the dominance of the wolf spider Pardosa milvina in cities?”

Frederico Hickmann, Advisor: Michel, Meuti & A. Correa, Univ. de Sao Paulo. 1^st place, TMP session, Physiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology: Genetics and RNAi. “Gene expression profiling of diapausing Euschistus stink bugs”

Olivia Lang, Advisors: Cañas, Leach and Michel.  2^nd place, TMP session, MUVE and P-IE: Pests, Extension, and Forensic. “Seeing what’s not there: 3D printing as a tool to improve invasive species detection and identification”

Dom Magistrado, Advisor: Short. 2^nd place, TMP session, MUVE: Molecular and Cellular Biology. “Immune defense and the unfolded protein response in Aedes aegypti mosquitoes”

Michelle Pham, Advisor: Gardiner. 1^st place, TMP session, P-IE: Conservation and Ecology 1. “Reclaiming vacant land to support stormwater management and insect habitat”

Grace Sward, Advisor: Cañas.  2^nd place, TMP session, P-IE: IPM and Insecticide Resistance. “A peek at how different oyster mushroom (Pleurotus spp.) hunting strategies can impact fungus gnat (Lycoriella spp.) management”

Ana Trabanino Pino, Advisor: Michel.  2^nd place, TMP session, P-IE: IPM - Field Crops 1. “Near-infrared spectroscopy as a novel tool to identify Lepidopteran infested maize”

Liam Whiteman, Advisor: Strange. 1^st place, Poster session: P-IE: Social Insects and Conservation. “Bumble bee pathogens across an urban to rural gradient”

Undergraduate Students

Grant Awards & Entomology Scholarships

Sydney Robare, Advisor: Meuti. Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship $5,928. “Characterizing social and educational drivers of mosquito abundance and disease risk.”

Regan Draeger, Entomology DK & FF Smith Scholarship

Entomological Society of America Annual Research Competition

Lizzy Sakulich, Advisor: Strange. 1^st place, Undergraduate Poster session: Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity: Social Insects and Conservation. “Effects of landscape isolation on bumble bee population genetics”

Undergraduate Research Theses

Christiana Arkorful-Bondzie, Advisor: Meuti. Undergraduate Research Thesis, “Do seasonal differences in the ejaculate of male mosquitoes affect the longevity of female Northern house mosquitoes?”

Olivia Bianco, Advisor: Meuti. Honors Research Thesis, “Measuring the Effect of Royal Jelly on the Seasonal Responses and Metabolic Profile of Culex pipiens”

Nicole Sammons, Advisor: R. Johnson. Undergraduate Research Thesis, “Fungi Effects on Varroa Mites”

Contributed by Jeni Ruisch, program director, Insectary and BUGmobile

BUGmobile takes off

The BUGmobile continued to pile on the miles this fall as it visited sites around central Ohio, and also opened in place for events at CFAES’ Waterman Agricultural and Natural Resources Laboratory. One of the highlights of this fall has been finally getting the opportunity to thank the Faustinis for their generous donation which helped this dream become reality. They were able to step onto the BUGmobile and see for themselves the novelty and value of this one-of-a-kind vehicle. We remain on the hunt for a truck to tow this mobile zoo/classroom/laboratory to its future engagements!

Farm Science Review was by all accounts a successful week of outreach, recruiting, and networking on the part of our department. *Thank you, thank you, thank you* to all those who were willing to volunteer their time to help with outreach events this summer, and those who will lend a hand in the future. We truly could not fulfill our mission without you!

Connect with us on instagram @osuentomology, or FaceBook @OhioStateEntomology

Featured Bug Zoo Arthropod

Blue Death Feigning beetle, Asbolus verrucosus
Habitat/Range: Southwestern United States, Sonoran Desert
Diet: Generalists, will eat pretty much anything. Carrion, fruits and vegetables, commercial fish and pet food.
Lifespan: Long-lived as adults. Anecdotal reports say that they can live over a decade.
Fun Fact: Blue death feigning beetles will strike a very dramatic pose and lay very still to deter predators. Their blue color comes from wax that they spread on their exoskeleton. This wax comes from glands on the beetle and prevents dehydration. If the beetles are exposed to water or highly humid air, they will turn black. They are prolific in the wild but are difficult or even impossible to breed in captivity.

Contributed by Denise Ellsworth, program director, Pollinator Education

Native Plants and Biodiversity

In 2022, 150 adult volunteers (OSU Extension Master Gardener Volunteers and Ohio Certified Volunteer Naturalists) enrolled in an online certificate course sponsored by the CFAES Department of Entomology entitled, “Native Plants and Biodiversity.” This six-week online course included webinars, readings, discussions, seminars and individual habitat enhancement projects based on course content. Lecturers included Douglas Tallamy, author Heather Holm, Ohio State professor Mary Gardiner and other experts. In-person field days in spring and summer provided additional opportunities for learning and networking, with locations including the Chadwick Arboretum & Learning Gardens in Columbus; Kingwood Center in Mansfield; the Ohio State Mansfield campus; the Dawes Arboretum in Newark; and Bowyer Farm, part of the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden. The Native Plants and Biodiversity course combined online experiences with in-person learning opportunities, providing a hybrid format to transition from fully virtual learning experiences to a “post-pandemic” educational format.  These course participants are now working in their local communities to teach others through displays, classes and events. This program was funded in part by Ohio State’s Integrated Pest Management grant.

Research Focus: Metal contamination threatens bumble bee foraging efficiency in cities

Sarah Scott, Frances Sivakoff and Mary Gardiner

Post-industrial cities, including Cleveland, Ohio, have become focuses of urban greening initiatives due to their large holdings of vacant lands. These areas have a complex history of manufacturing, industrial activity, and deconstruction that has resulted in elevated metal contamination within the landscape. Urban bees are exposed to metals while foraging in contaminated landscapes at concentrations that cause elevated brood mortality. Sublethal exposure to certain metal pollutants challenge honey bee memory and recall abilities and reduce active foraging time on metal contaminated plants. However, the impact of sublethal metal consumption on bumble bee foraging ability was largely unknown.

The goal of our study was to determine if consuming concentrations of the metals arsenic, cadmium, chromium, lead, found in floral provisions within Cleveland influenced bumble bee forager behavior. We hypothesized that bumble bees fed metals will take fewer and shorter foraging trips outside of the colony due to challenged memory and learning. 

We tested our hypothesis using novel RFID tracking systems. First, bees from twenty-eight naïve Bombus impatiens colonies were tagged with unique RFID tags (Figure 1), and each colony was randomly assigned to a heavy metal treatment or control. For three days, we fed each colony either a sucrose solution (control), or the same solution dosed with arsenic, cadmium, chromium, or lead. Next, we removed these food sources and placed the colonies into a RFID system to forage in the natural environment at Waterman Agriculture and Natural Resources Laboratory in Columbus, OH, USA for 14 days. The RFID system were constructed from modified 10-frame deep honey bee boxes and had drilled ventilation holes, a lattice bottom, and were lined with aluminum mesh to allow airflow but prevent unwanted pests and volunteer bee entry into the unit (Figure 2). Each RFID unit had two antenna readers connected in series separated by a 3 cm Delrin resin block. Bees access the outside by passing through a pair of RFID readers along a 0.5 m polyethylene semi-clear tube (1/2 in diameter) connected to the outside environment (Figure 2). As bees moved through the paired readers, the individual RFID transponder tag with a time stamp was recorded and the antenna ID to determine the direction of movement (exiting to forage versus returning to the colony).

We found that there was no difference in the number of tagged bees that left their colony or the number of foraging trips taken per bee between control and treatment colonies.  However, chromium and cadmium fed bees performed shorter foraging bouts and were more likely to enter a non-natal colony at least one time compared to control bees. Our findings illustrate that sublethal chromium and cadmium consumption can effect bumble bee forage frequency, duration, and return navigation. Challenged navigation and memory performance has the potential to reduce the number of foragers returning with food resources and hinder colony success.

 Figure 1. Bombus impatiens with micro-RFID tag foraging on white clover. The RFID tags measured 1.0 x 1.5 x 0.5 mm and weighed 2.5 mg.

 

Figure 2. Our RFID tracking system was constructed out of modified honey bee boxes. Inside each box, a bumble bee colony was connected to the outside via an outlet tube that runs through two antenna readers separated by a 7.6 cm Delrin resin block. A tagged bee exiting the colony triggers the inside and then the outside antenna reader. A bee entering the colony triggers the outside and then the inside antenna reader. Two antennas in line provides directionality data.