Written by:  Veronica Yurchak &  Anthony Nearman 

​Managing a crop pest means more than simply spraying fields with insecticides. What and when to spray, how much, and where to apply chemicals are all questions that any successful pest control must address. To further complicate things, the answers to those questions will change with any given pest. How then do we confront the vast number of pests plaguing our agricultural systems? Dr. Jim Miller believes he has an answer, and it begins with sex.

Written by:  Zac Lamas and Graham Stewart

If you are traveling in New England and have ever passed an open meadow that isn’t being used for agriculture, you’re probably looking at an “old field” ecosystem. These are dense fields filled with a variety of flora- typically dominated by the early summer legumes trefoil and trillium, followed by the late season goldenrods and asters. While these fields are often overgrown, occasional mowing or controlled burning prevents succession to a forested state.
 
These old field ecosystems provide rich models for studying nutrient cycling. Rob Buchkowski, a PhD candidate from Yale, has spent his dissertation investigating “brown” (traditionally thought of as belowground) and “green” (traditionally thought of as aboveground) food webs, and how nutrition flows through and between these components of old field ecosystems. If you’re up for a bit of a ride, we’ll follow Rob through a bird’s eye view of the major principles of food chains, how nutrition moves through the system, and how we can mathematically model these systems 

Written by: Arielle Arsenault-Benoit & Katie Reding
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Vector development and reproduction are imperative to combating vector-borne illness. Dr. Kevin Vogel and his research team at the University of Georgia are employing an integrative approach to further understanding of these factors in mosquitoes and a triatomine kissing bug. 

Written by: Maggie Lewis. Maggie is a second year PhD student in the Hamby lab who is currently studying the interactions between spotted wing drosophila and yeast and fungal microbes. 

In agriculture, understanding an insect’s biology is a crucial aspect for developing and improving sustainable agricultural pest management programs. Knowledge of basic aspects of an insect’s life history, including its phenology, its behavioral ecology, and its interactions with the environment, provide clues that can help growers identify and exploit that pest’s weakness. Dr. Anne Nielsen, an associate professor in the Department of Entomology at Rutgers University, is currently studying how we can use this biologically based approach to improve management of Halyomorpha halys, more commonly known as the brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB).

Written by: Lisa Kuder, PhD student, vanEngelsdorp Lab & Kelly Kulhanek, PhD student, vanEngelsdorp Lab
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Swarming, biting insects that shroud their victims in a seemingly inescapable cloud can certainly put a damper on outdoor activities. This is a common scenario in parts of the Mid-Atlantic Region situated near fast-moving rivers like the Potomac. In 2013, the public and economic impacts of biting insects moved residents from Washington County, Maryland to seek help from their state delegate and from UMD’s aquatic insect lab. The main culprit that locals tend to call “gnats” turned out to be black flies, Simulium jenningsi (Order: Diptera). In response to complaints about the nuisance fly, Becca Wilson-Ounekeo, a PhD candidate in UMD’s Entomology Department, set out to learn more about the biology, distribution, and public impact of the black fly. She soon embarked on research that would incorporate citizen-science and intensive field work. 

Written by Elizabeth Brandt. Elizabeth Brandt is a M.S. student in Dr. David Hawthorne’s lab studying the detoxification gene pathways of the honey bee.

​On an extremely wet Saturday in Annapolis, the UMD Entomology department gathered at the downtown offices of SESYNC for their annual Department Retreat. The retreat is designed for all members of the department to come together at the beginning of a new academic year to discuss the past year’s developments and accomplishments, and to synthesize a strategic plan for the coming year. Part of the retreat’s agenda includes a series of short research talks given by graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. For the 2018 retreat, the department welcomed two new faculty members, Dr. Karin Burghardt and Dr. Anahí Espíndola. Each gave a short talk about their research interests. 

​​The gall wasp tree of life is overdue for a major overhaul. With the help of new genetic technologies and the hard work of Crystal Cooke (Dept. Entomology, University of Maryland), we have a better understanding of the relationships between gall wasp species and clades.

​One of the greatest mysteries in the field of Evolutionary Biology surrounds the origins of unique morphological structures that have come into existence over evolutionary time. The work of Dr. Mark Rebeiz from the University of Pittsburgh seeks to molecularly characterize the evolutionary changes in developmental mechanisms that control morphology. Using species from the vinegar fly genus Drosophila, Dr. Rebeiz has been able to demonstrate that the emergence of divergent traits, studied through abdominal pigmentation and male genitalia models, are in part the result of changes in the activity of transcription factors and gene regulatory mechanisms during development, rather than the emergence of new genes alone. 

​Researchers are developing new genomic approaches to detect pathogens and their vectors. These new methods reduce cost, increase sensitivity, and may allow for early detection of new parasites.

​Dr. John Cooley focuses his research on the periodical cicada, and uses decades of data to map emergences of this insect. Due to methodological limits and unpredictable environmental changes, historical maps may provide inaccurate information. Dr. Cooley’s current mapping projects based on modern techniques and a better understanding of biology and biogeography are providing new insight into old ideas regarding periodical cicada distribution and emergence dynamics.

​Horseshoe crabs (Order: Xiphonsura) were once thought to be a relatively static, unchanging group of organisms. Dr. Lamsdell of the University of West Virginia, however, fundamentally changed the way we view horseshoe crabs through his paleotonoligcal research on their dynamic evolutionary history.

The mechanisms of exactly how mosquitoes locate their human hosts still elude the scientific community. Dr Conor McMeniman’s lab at Johns Hopkins has made advances in understanding the important role that the CO2 we exhale has to play in mosquitoes’ host-finding abilities. With the urgency of the Zika threat looming, understanding its mosquito vectors’ human-finding processes is vital to public health.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus was channeling his inner taxonomist when he declared, “everything is in flux.” Depending on who you ask, taxonomy as a field precariously teeters between being either the foundation of all other biological sciences or the most esoteric debate topic two scientists can choose. Scientists rely on taxonomists to draw the lines between the species that we study so we can all be on the same page while we study them (imagine trying to plan a trip to the zoo without names for the animals). As Dr. Jason Mottern explained during the last Entomology Department colloquium of 2016, these lines are often drawn in pencil.

 Conservation biological control – a fancy term for the support of beneficial insects in a cropping system to enhance natural pest control - has long been of interest in organic agriculture. Lauren Hunt of the Department of Entomology’s Hooks Lab has been investigating the potential for conservation biological control in organic field corn using partridge pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata) to attract and support insects that feed on and parasitize pests. Many predators and parasitoids, collectively called beneficial insects or natural enemies, need nectar resources offered by flowers to successfully develop and reproduce. Partridge pea offers these nectar resources to insects in the form of flowers and via special glands, termed “extrafloral nectaries” located at the base of the petioles. These nectaries are particularly attractive to wasps known to parasitize a variety of insect pests, including stink bugs, corn earworms, and corn borers – common pests of corn and key pests in Lauren’s study.

The kudzu bug (Megacopta cribraria) (Family Plataspidae) (Fig. 1) has become a widespread invasive pest in the southern United States since it was first detected in Georgia in 2009. This small, round bug is closely related to stinkbugs (Pentatomidae) and has plagued soybean farmers under non-treatment and high density conditions with yield losses as high as 59%! It feeds on the soybean plants’ leaves and stems with its piercing-sucking mouthparts, which can affect the number of seeds per pod and overall seed weight. The overall damage is astounding, especially when considering all kudzu bugs in North America originated from a single female bug from Japan. Luckily, many studies have been done to track and monitor this pest, such as those done by Jessica Grant.
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 It can be a lonely world for a bed bug researcher! Dr. Mark Feldlaufer began his presentation by extending an open invitation to visit his bed bug research lab at the United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville, Maryland. He assured us that the offer rarely gets takers, and it is really not surprising, all things considered. As parasites that feed on people and cause itchy welts, bed bugs give people the heebie-jeebies. Just a picture or two of the bed bugs (Fig. 1) was enough to have several attendees visibly cringe, as they imagine the marks and persistent itches that usually follow after bed bug bites. However, Dr. Feldlaufer’s fascinating research, which aims to improve bed bug detection and control, may contribute to a future where everyone can rest assured that there truly are no creatures lurking under the bed.

often do not come in contact with them. It is impractical, dangerous, and against labelled usage, to coat every surface and crack of a home or business in insecticide, so bed bug chemical treatments often fail. The silver bullet control method appears to be heat treatments, but, like silver, heat treatments are expensive. Homes are heated to between 120-140⁰F for several hours to kill all bed bug life stages, which tend to cost anywhere between $2,500-$7,000. Though bed bugs themselves do not discriminate against the rich or poor, our methods of remediation tend to do just that. The most effective way to get rid of bed bugs is unaffordable to many.

In the course of his bed bug research, Dr. Feldlaufer has worked on other projects to help to detect and control bed bugs early in their infestations with a number of students, including our very own Dr. Kevin Ulrich. The team found that bed bugs consistently avoided a common chemical insect repellent, DEET, the main ingredient in most mosquito repellents. They did not, however, respond with greater avoidance to higher dosage. Although this may seem like a quick and easy fix, wearing DEET to bed may just cause bed bugs to merely move on to other surfaces (e.g. the couch). On the other hand, they also found that aldehyde compounds produced by bed bugs elicit a strong attractive response to other adult and immature bed bugs. These aldehydes may be one way bed bugs attract each other to form aggregations (Ulrich et al. 2016), suggesting that the aldehydes may be used to develop an inexpensive and more discreet option to lure and trap bed bugs. Dr. Feldlaufer currently aims to develop and test reduced risk pesticides that show promise in killing bed bugs.

Bed bugs can be a terribly menacing presence in anyone’s home, but thankfully Dr. Feldlaufer has dedicated much of his career to keeping us informed about these insects and their crafty activities. By pairing lures with reduced risk pesticides, Dr. Feldlaufer aims to develop options to safely, affordably, and discreetly ensure we can sleep tight assured that the bed bugs will not bite.

References:

Lit L., Schweitzer J.B., and Oberbauer A.M. 2011. Handler beliefs affect scent detection dog outcomes. Animal Cognition 14: 387.
Pfiester M., Koehler P.G., and Pereira R.M. 2008. Ability of bed bug-detecting canines to locate live bed bugs and viable bed bug eggs. Journal of Economic Entomology 101(4):1389-96.

Ulrich, K.R., Kramer, M. and Feldlaufer, M.F. 2016. Ability of bed bug (Hemiptera: Cimicidae) defensive secretions (E)-2-hexenal and (E)-2-octenal to attract adults of the common bed bug Cimex lectularius. Physiological Entomology 41: 103-110.

Author Bio:

Hanna Kahl is a master’s student at University of Maryland in Dr. Cerruti Hooks’ lab researching the effects of red clover living mulch on arthropod pests and pollinators.

Samuel Ramsey is a PhD student at University of Maryland in Dr. Dennis vanEngelsdorp’s lab researching Varroa destructor.