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Ken Spence |
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Andrew Sutherland |
DAVIS--Two graduate students in entomology at the University of California, Davis have won competitive biological control awards totaling $6,750.
For the second consecutive year, Ken Spence, a doctoral student in Jay Rosenheim’s laboratory, received a $5000 Robert van den Bosch Scholarship from the Center for Biological Control (CBC), UC Berkeley, to support his research on "Omnivorous Natural Enemies and Induced Plant Responses.” He is one of six recipients from UC campuses.
Spence said his research “examines the interactions between omnivores, herbivores, and induced plant responses in cotton with the goal of understanding the implications for biological control. Most of my work has been with the spider mite Tetranychus turkestani, the western flower thrips Frankliniella occidentalis, and the minute pirate bug Orius spp.”
Andrew Sutherland, a doctoral student in Michael Parrella’s lab, received a first-place award from the Association of Natural Biocontrol Producers (ANBP) for a poster he and Parrella submitted at the Fifth California Conference on Biological Control, held July 25-27 in Riverside.
The work, praised by the judges as “potentially important in the commercial biocontrol industry,” included the poster, "Quantification of Powdery Mildew Consumption of a Native Coccinellid: Implications for Biological Control?", and an accompanying paper published in the conference proceedings. Sutherland received $250.
CBS earlier presented Sutherland with a $1500 Robert van den Bosch Travel Award to attend the International Organization for Biological Control conference on “Integrated Control in Protected Crops, Mediterranean Climate,” held May 14-18 in Murcia, Spain. He was cited for his research on "Quantification of Powdery Mildew
Removal by the Mycophagous Beetle, Psyllobora vigintimaculata (Coleoptera:
Coccinellidae).” The beetle is commonly known as the “mildew-eating ladybird beetle.”
Van den Bosch (1922-1978), a noted entomologist and biological control advocate, was a researcher and professor at UC Berkeley at the time of his death. A native of Martinez, he joined the UC Riverside faculty in 1951, and the UC Berkeley faculty in 1963. During his career, he searched for natural enemies of agricultural pests, an effort that resulted in the importation and establishment of 17 natural enemy species.
More information on CBC is at http://nature.berkeley.edu/biocon/ . The UC Davis Department of Entomology Web site is at http://entomology.ucdavis.edu/. |
