The California Department of Pesticide Regulation has awarded grants to two UCR scientists, Kerry Mauck and Chow-Yang Lee, for innovative research projects to reduce overreliance on pesticides. Excessive pesticide use causes widespread environmental contamination. It can be toxic to other living things, including beneficial insects, wildlife and humans. More than 90 percent of water and...
Releasing hordes of sterilized male insects for unfruitful mating with females—a process known as the sterile insect technique (SIT)—is a proven process for combating many species of pests. Its success depends on sterile males dispersing widely enough to outcompete their wild counterparts and mate with enough females to reduce reproduction of a population. Link to...
The Eastern U.S. is about to see something that hasn't happened since the final episode of Friends aired on NBC: massive swarms of Brood X cicadas. Billions of the red-eyed, black-bodied insects are taking to the skies after 17 years underground, buzzing loudly to attract mates before they die. Not only is the spectacle of...
The Royal Entomological Society has bestowed its Westwood Medal upon entomology professor Christiane Weirauch for her work on true bugs — a group of insect that includes plant attackers and human disease spreaders as well as natural pest controllers. The society, based in the U.K., is one of the oldest and most prominent organizations of...
The UC Riverside Microbiome Initiative and California-based General Automation Lab Technologies, or GALT, have partnered to advance plant pathology, environmental microbiology, and insect and human gut microbiome studies. As part of this collaboration, GALT will support five UC Riverside research projects that will use the company’s Prospector® high-throughput microbial isolation and cultivation system to generate...
If you think blueberries, cherries, or almonds are expensive, wait until you buy cranberries for Thanksgiving this year. They’re about to get much pricier, if you can get them at all. All of them are dependent on pollination by bees, as are about a third of the foods we put in our mouths. If honeybee...
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside are leading a new effort to stop and reverse a worldwide decline in honeybees. To boost dwindling honeybee populations, the University of California’s Office of the President has awarded $900,000 to a four-campus network of bee researchers and engineers. Boris Baer is a professor of entomology at UC...
Late last month, Anne Danielson-Francois, an associate biology professor at the University of Michigan, received an unusual package. She had instructed the sender to make sure the contents — spiders — were cushioned because she did not want their legs to break off. When Dr. Danielson-Francois opened the little brown box, there they were —...
The plant that encourages kissing at Christmas is in fact a parasite, and new research reveals mistletoe has an unusual feeding strategy. Like other plants, mistletoe is capable of using sunlight to create its own food, a process called photosynthesis. However, it prefers to siphon water and nutrients from other trees and shrubs, using “false...
With honeybees dying at rates never seen before, there’s a big buzz about the future of some of your favorite foods. “This is something that is going to affect what you can buy in a grocery store and what you can eat and how much you are going to pay for,” said Jules Bernstein of...
Scientists at four University of California campuses, including UC San Diego, are leading a new effort to stop and reverse a worldwide decline in honeybees, which threatens food security and prices. Honeybees pollinate more than 80 agricultural crops, which account for about a third of what we eat. Several factors, including pesticide exposure and the...
In Memoriam William E. Walton Professor of Entomology (September 1, 1956 - October 18, 2020) The Department of Entomology, the University of California, and the field of vector ecology have lost one of their most dedicated, productive, and beloved scientists. Dr. William E. (Bill) Walton, Professor of Entomology, passed away at the UC Irvine Medical...
Following a decade-long effort, scientists have mapped out the genome of an aphid-like pest capable of decimating vineyards. In so doing, they have discovered how it spreads — and potentially how to stop it. The research team’s work on the genome was published this past week in a BMC Biology paper. In it, they identified...
Blood-feeding livestock mites can be detected with wearable sensor technology nicknamed “Fitbits for chickens.” To help farmers detect mite infestations, a team of entomologists, computer scientists, and biologists led by UC Riverside entomologist Amy Murillo has created a new insect detection system. The team’s work is detailed in the journal Scientific Reports. In recent years...
The University of California, Riverside, has won a $10 million grant to develop artificial intelligence that will increase the environmental and economic stability of agriculture in the Western U.S. This Sustainable Agricultural Systems grant is one of nine given by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, or NIFA, annually to...
Just call him Professor Guinea Pig. Adapting to remote learning this quarter, Professor Rich Cardullo is performing all the experiments for his human physiology laboratory course — on himself. Picture a video in which your professor puts electrodes on his thighs and has a teaching assistant hit his knees, so you can see the impact...
As the world continues to confront the global pandemic, the University of California community has stepped up like never before, drawing on the spirit of ingenuity and service that defines us. From hospitals and labs to neighborhoods across California, UC staff, faculty, alumni and students are putting their creativity and compassion to work to help...
COVER PHOTO: A female sweat bee, Halictus ligatus, perches on the petals of an ornamental crepe myrtle, Lagerstroemia indica, at a plant nursery in Irwindale, California, USA. In this issue, The Scientific Naturalist series shares how Cecala and Wilson Rankin (Article e03021; doi:10.1002/ecy.3021) paint-marked bees to track their foraging patterns on flowering plants inside commercial...
Houston Wilson has been named the Presidential Director for the University of California's Organic Agriculture Institute, which was established in January 2020 with a $500,000 endowment by Clif Bar and a matching $500,000 endowment from UC President Janet Napolitano. Wilson, a UC Riverside agricultural entomologist based at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center, joined...
