“Bugs are not going to inherit the earth ... They own it now.”

— Thomas Eisner

New FacultyIn January 2008, Dr. Ashley Dowling

joined the department of Entomology as an Assistant Professor. Dr. Dowling received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan (2005) and spent two years as a post-doc at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Dowling began a program on the systematics of mites and will be teaching General Entomology this fall.

Significant ChangesDrs. Kelly Loftin and Glenn Stude-

baker, Extension Entomologists in Fayette-ville and Keiser, respectively, were promoted to Associate Professor.

Graduates and JobsOne of the hardest parts of our job is to

say goodbye to the great people we meet. Stay in touch!

• John Riggins was hired as an Assistant Professor at Mississippi State University — his first interview!! We will miss John’s dry humor. He could always make us laugh. Good luck, John!

• Robin Verble moved to UALR to work with her favorite ant guru, Dr. Steve Yanoviak. We expect great things from Robin, as she is very energetic and driven. Good luck with your Ph.D., Robin!

• Dagne Duguma Demisse, from Ethio-pia, is going to UC–Riverside to work on the mosquito vectors of human diseases. We know he will go on to be a big success in this field. Good luck with your Ph.D., Dag.!

• Jon Zawislak has landed an exciting job in Little Rock as the new Extension Api-culturist. He will be working with beekeepers around Arkansas, providing education, train-ing sessions, and conducting applied research. Jon will be busy!

We will miss all of you!!!!

Department of Entomology Newsletter

INSIDE

Welcome...................................2

Notable News ...........................3

Achievements of Students and Alumni ..............................3

Entomology Seminars ..............4

Calendar ...................................4

Entomology Faculty .................4

Department of Entomology319 Agriculture BuildingUniversity of ArkansasFayetteville, AR 72701

479-575-2451

http://entomology.uark.edu/

New StudentsIn 2007-08, two new M.S. students, Jake

Farnum and Josh Hannam, began their programs. Three Ph.D. students, Stephanie (Hebert) Defibaugh-Chavez, John Rig-gins, Jackie McKern and two M.S. students, Dagne Duguma Demisse and Robin Verble, completed their degrees.

We welcome three new students this year:• Roxane Magnus, from Cape Girardeau,

Mo. Roxanne will be working on a Master’s degree with Dr. Szalanski.

• Ben Von Kanel, from Lexa, Ark. Ben will be working on a Master’s degree study-ing insects in row crops, with Dr. Lorenz.

• Carey Minteer, from Springdale, Ark. Carey will arrive in January and will be working on a Ph.D. with Dr. Kring studying biological control of weeds.

Vol. 1 No. 1 • September 2008

DID YOU KNOW?Mosquitoes kill more people than any other animal.

The Department of Entomology at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, welcomes you to our new newsletter!

The recent Buzz is that the Japanese Beetles have arrived in droves. The numbers have been staggering, to say the least. Ento-mology faculty and staff placed 15 traps for mass trapping at the U of A Farm. On June 10, there were about 4 or 5 beetles collected, by June 26 they collected approximately 10,000, and by August 15 the count was over 120,000. In southern Missouri, Donn Johnson and Barbara Lewis placed 18 traps - there were none on June 14, by June 27 they col-lected more than 30,000, and by August 18 they had over a million!

We had hundreds of cicada killers outside the Agriculture building throughout July and August. They were causing quite a stir. They generally will not bother people. Cicada killers trap cicadas and take them into their burrows to feed their young.

Welcome! I am happy to see the Department newsletter resur-rected, and look forward to its regular occurrence. As you will read in the rest of the newsletter, the past year has been an

exciting one for the Department. With the hire of Dr. Ashley Dowling as Assistant Professor, we once again are fully staffed. Drs. Kelly Loftin and Glenn Studebaker were promoted to Associate Professor, reflecting their contributions to the Department and Extension. Two new M.S. students began their study in 2007-2008 and five students completed their degrees and moved on to new challenges.

One of the most exciting aspects of the past year has been the involve-ment and visibility of our students. As an educational unit, we seek to create diverse educational opportunities for our students. This past year, they sought those opportunities and benefited from their participation. By my count, our students participated in 15 different meetings — many more than the typical entomological meetings that we routinely attend, and rang-ing from local to regional, national and international. Again, by my count, our students presented 51 papers and posters at those meetings, which is certainly the largest number in recent history. I applaud their efforts, their visibility and their contributions to the growth of our Department from those experiences.

The students also continue to maintain the outreach program with presentations at local schools, libraries and other venues. This past year marked inclusion of the Farmer’s Market and the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks as new venues for regular presentations. This fall will see the latest in the series of Insect Festivals, which draws several thousand people from around the state.

The students also developed the idea for the Distinguished Alumnus Award, which was first presented in August 2007 and continues this year (see the column in the newsletter).

The new school year brings new faces and new challenges. We look forward to those challenges and to input from the friends and alumni of the Department. We hope to see you at one of our events or socials, or feel free to drop by the Department anytime.

Best wishes,

Rob Wiedenmann

The combination of cool temperatures and rain has brought many calls about bee swarms this year. We were averaging 2 or 3 calls a week from distraught home-owners who didn’t know what to do. Our bee experts captured quite a few swarms to reintroduce them to new hives.

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We always receive calls in the sum-mer from folks who have a black widow, a tarantula, a brown recluse, or just need identification of some sort of arthropod.

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The Entomology museum is in the process of being updated. Dr. Barnes and Susan Osredker are revamping the whole museum and it is looking sweet! We are recategorizing, relabelling and replacing drawers. The museum will now be easier for faculty and students to find what they are looking for and will also help pre-serve insects for future generations.

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The Insect Festival of Arkansas will be held Thursday, October 9, at the Pau-line Whitaker Animal Science Center (Arena) at the UA Farm. Displays, crafts, activities and education about entomology will take place all day — plan to attend!

2007-2008 Graduate Students Back, from left: Ben Von Kanel, Jake Farnum, Austin Jones, Josh Hannam, Ryan Allen, Cesar Solorzano.

Seated, from left: Laurel Havik, Sandra Sleezer, Tara Wood, Roxane Magnus, Milenka Arevalo, Becky Trout. Insert: Godshen Palliparambil

The Entomology Club Outreach Program was the busiest it has ever been. The Entomology Club sold T-shirts last year and became an official registered student organization. They have excelled in their goals to keep bees and soon will be selling honey.

The Entomology Club also has had a booth every other Saturday at the Farmer’s Market, on the square in downtown Fayetteville. It has been a great success. Homeowners and gardeners are always interested in how they can improve pest management. Many children are interested in the big beautiful butterflies and some like the “creepy crawlies.” There are a variety of insects from Arkansas on display in museum drawers for all to view, and had a microscope for the younger ones to use to get a good look at the insects.

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This year we also tried something totally new. Dr. Steinkraus’s photog-raphy class presented their best pictures as a Photo Salon. The artistic and technical quality of the students’ photos was outstanding. Several students graciously donated their photos to display in the Department Office, although a few staff members didn’t appreciate the huge spider with the countless baby spiders on its back!

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Beginning last year, at the suggestion of our graduate students, we imple-mented a Distinguished Alumnus Award. Marc Linit (Ph.D. 1981), currently at the University of Missouri, was honored with a reception, received a plaque and gave a seminar about his career since he graduated. It was a blast!

The 2008 Distinguished Alumnus Award winner will be Dr. Ronald Davey, USDA-ARS in Texas. Dr. Davey’s seminar will be at 11:30 am in Agriculture Building, Room 332. The title of his talk will be “The Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program: A brief history and current research efforts”. We will have a reception for Dr. Davey from 4:30–7 pm, (with light refresh-ments), at the University House, at 1002 West Maple Street.

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• Donn T. Johnson and Carolyn Lewis (Entomology) and Curt Rom, Elena Garcia and Jason McAfee (Horticulture) attended the International Organic Fruit Conference in Vignoles, Italy on June 16-17, 2009. Donn gave one of the plenary talks, “Organic Fruit Production Needs and Pest Manage-ment Practices in the Southeastern United States”. They then traveled to Modena, Italy on June 17-19 for two days of meetings and read posters asso-ciated with the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

• Paul McLeod went to Central and South America to work on a book about pests in Belize.

• Gus Lorenz, Max Meisch, Fred Stephen, and Rob Wiedenmann par-ticipated in the International Congress of Entomology, July 5-12, in Durban, South Africa. Fred organized a symposium and Gus presented two posters. Fred toured several forestry sites in South Africa while Rob met with Dr. Rami Kfir, Research Director for the South African Plant Protection Research Institute.

• Fiona Goggin traveled to Wageningen, Netherlands, to present an invited paper and a poster in the international symposium on “Plant Inter-actions with Aphids,” August 18-20. She also visited her collaborator, Dr. Frederic Francis, at the University of Gembloux, Belgium.

Notable News this year…Achievements of Students and Alumni

• Jackie McKern and Jon Zawislak were named Dale Bumpers Scholars for Ph.D. and M.S., respectively.

• Jackie McKern was a co-winner of the Sigma Xi Aubrey E. Harvey Graduate Research Award.

• Godshen Robert and Dagne Duguma received the Department of Entomology John Heiss Award for Ph.D. and M.S., respectively.

• John Riggins and Jon Zawislak received the Jacob R. Phillips Pest Management Scholarships for Ph.D. and M.S., respectively.

• Rebecca Trout and Robin Verble received the Lloyd and Ruby Warren Scholarships for Ph.D. and M.S., respectively.

• The Department of Entomology Linnaean Games Team, consisting of Becky Trout, Sandra Sleezer, Jackie McKern, Cesar Solorzano and Godshen Robert, won the National Championship in December 2007.

Misc. Awards• Melissa Fierke was awarded the first Roger F. Anderson Outstanding Graduate Student in Southern Forest Entomology Award, by the Southern Forest Insect Work Conference, Jekyll Island, Georgia.

• Becky Trout received the Joseph H. Camin Scholarship to attend the 2008 Acarology Course at Ohio State University.

Paper and Poster Competition• Jackie McKern received 2nd place (Section F) and Becky Trout received 2nd place (Sections D and E) in the student competition at the Entomological Society of America meeting at San Diego.

• Craig Shelton received 1st place for Oral Presentation at the Beltwide Cotton Conference, Nashville.

• Tara Wood received 3rd place in the Gamma Sigma Delta, AR Chapter, M.S. Oral Presentation Research Competition.

www.uark.edu/depts/entomolo/

Fall 2008 Entomology SeminarsSeptember 12 Ronald Davey, Distinguished Alumni Award Winner RECEPTION: 4:30 - 7 pm. University House, 1002 West Maple

September 19 John Tooker, Penn State UniversitySeptember 26 Phillip Williamson, University of North Texas October 3 Marianne Alleyne, University of IllinoisOctober 10 NO SEMINAR – AES Mtg @ FayettevilleOctober 17 Carlos Bogran, Texas A&M UniversityOctober 24 Joe Elkinton, University of MassachusettsOctober 31 Sandra Sleezer, UA Dept. of EntomologyNovember 7 Tara Wood, UA Dept. of EntomologyNovember 14 Scott Longing – UA CSES November 21 Ryan Allen, UA Dept. of EntomologyNovember 28 THANKSGIVING – no seminarDecember 5 Austin Jones, UA Dept. of Entomology

Calendar: October 9 Insect Festival of Arkansas, FayettevilleOctober 10 Arkansas Entomological Society Meeting, FayettevilleOctober 10 Entomology Department PicnicNovember 16-19 ESA Annual Meeting, Reno, Nev.December 5 Department Holiday PartyMarch 8-11, 2009 Southeastern Branch Meeting, Montgomery, Ala.

Entomology Faculty

Department Head Rob Wiedenmann

University Professors Max MeischFred Stephen

ProfessorDonn Johnson Tim KringGus LorenzRandy LuttrellPaul McLeodDayton SteelmanDon SteinkrausTina Gray Teague

Associate ProfessorFiona GogginKelly LoftinGlenn StudebakerAllen Szalanski

Assistant ProfessorScott AkinJohn BernhardtJohn HopkinsAshley Dowling

CuratorJeff Barnes

Adjunct ProfessorSharon BillingsBilly LeonardJohn ReeseLynne ThompsonPhillip Williamson

Department of Entomology319 Agriculture BuildingUniversity of ArkansasFayetteville, AR 72701

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