Canadian Entomology Research Roundup: June 2015 – September 2015

As part of a continuing series of Canadian Entomology Research Roundups, here’s what some Canadian entomology grad students have been up to lately:

Ecology and Evolution

Rasoul Bahreini (University of Manitoba) found that honeybee breeding can improve tolerance to Varroa mites which can help minimize colony losses in the winter and improve overwintering performance (Article link). Rasoul also found that reducing ventilation may be an effective way to manage Varroa mite infestation in overwintering honeybee colonies (Article link), and that Nosema infection restrained Varroa removal success in bees (Article link).

A setup to study the effects of Nosema on Varroa mite removal in honeybees (Photo: Rasoul Bahreini)

A novel method based on agar-polydimethylsiloxane devices to quantitatively investigate oviposition behaviour in Drosophila melanogaster was described by Jacob Leung and colleagues (York University) (Article link).

Paul Abram (Université de Montréal) and his colleagues found that a predatory stink bug has control of egg colouration, depending on whether it is laying on the top or underside of leaves.  The pigment protects developing embryos against UV radiation (Article link). See also a related post on the ESC blog, an article in the New York Times, and a dispatch article in Current Biology.

A spined soldier bug (Podisus maculiventris) female, with the range of egg colours she is capable of laying (Photo: Leslie Abram/Paul Abram/Eric Guerra)

Philippe Boucher and colleagues (Université du Québec à Rimouski/Chicoutimi) found that ant colonization of dead wood plays a role in nitrogen and carbon dynamics after forest fires (Article link).

Did you know that ground squirrels have lice – and males have more than females? Neither did we, but Matt Yunick and colleagues (University of Manitoba) recently published an article in The Canadian Entomologist describing their findings (Article link).

Boyd Mori and Dana Sjostrom (University of Alberta) were part of a group of researchers that found that pheromone traps are less effective at high densities of forest tent caterpillars because of competition for pheromone plumes (Article link).

Parasitoid memory dynamics are affected by realistic temperature stress. As part of a collaboration with the University of Palermo (Italy), Paul Abram (Université de Montréal) and colleagues discovered that both hot and cool temperature cycles prevent wasps (Trissolcus basalis) from forgetting. (Article link).

Trissolcus basalis (Hymenoptera: Platygastridae) wasps (left panel) parasitizing the eggs of their host stink bug Nezara viridula (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae; mating couple shown in right panel). These parasitoids can detect their host’s “chemical footprints”, and even commit them to memory! (Photos: Antonino Cusumano)

Crisia Tabacaru and Sarah McPike (University of Alberta) studied Dendroctonus ponderosae and other bark and ambrosia beetles and found that competition between the beetles may limit post-fire colonization of burned forest stands (Article link).

Marla Schwarzfeld (University of Alberta) found that tree-based (GMYC and PTP) species delimitation models were less reliable in delimiting test species, and the Nearctic Ophion (Hymenoptera: Ichneumonidae) fauna is much larger than previously thought (Article link).

Where have all the mosquitoes gone? Emily Acheson and colleagues (University of Ottawa) found spatial modelling reveals mosquito net distributions across Tanzania do not target optimal Anopheles mosquito habitats (Article link).

Tyler Wist and colleagues (University of Alberta) found that a native braconid parasitoid (Apanteles polychrosidis) uses host location cues induced by feeding damage on black ash but not on green ash (Article link). Also check out the author’s recent post on the ESC Blog!

Fig. 2 Female Apanteles polychrosidis Viereck (Hymenopetra: Braconidae) (Photo: Tyler Wist).

Agriculture

Sharavari Kulkarni and colleagues (University of Alberta) discovered that reducing tillage could increase the amount of weed seeds consumed by carabid beetles (Article link).

Physiology and Genetics

Sebastien Boutin and colleagues (Université Laval) are beginning to decode the genetic basis of honeybee hygenic behaviour (Article link).

Investigating the cold tolerance of different Sierra leaf beetle life stages, Evelyn Boychuk and colleagues (University of Western Ontario) found that adults are freeze tolerant, the eggs and pupae are freeze-avoidant, and the larvae are chill susceptible (Article link).

From the Authors:

Shaun Turney, Elyssa Cameron, and Chris Cloutier had this to say about their new article published in PeerJ:

Our supervisor, Prof. Chris Buddle, has always emphasized the importance of voucher specimens for our entomology research. He explained that voucher specimens make our work replicable and verifiable. We wondered how widespread the practice of making voucher specimens among those practicing arthropod-based research. We investigated the frequency of voucher deposition in 281 papers, and the factors which correlated to this frequency. Surprisingly, vouchers were deposited less than 25% of the time! Our paper highlights the need for a greater culture of voucher deposition and we suggest ways in which this culture can be cultivated by researchers, editors, and funding bodies.

Voucher specimens: an important component of arthropod-based research (Photo provided by Shaun Turney, Elyssa Cameron, and Chris Cloutier)

From Ikkei Shikano, on two of his recently published articles:

Parents that experience a stressful environment can equip their offspring to fare better in a similar environment. Since this can be energetically expensive for the parent, we asked if parents are exposed to two stressors (nutritional stress and a pathogen), would they equip the offspring for both stressors or would they select one over the other? Cabbage looper moths exposed to a pathogen and poor food quality produced offspring that were highly resistant to that same pathogen. Parents that were given poor food produced offspring that developed faster on poor food. When the parents experienced both stressors, they produced offspring that were resistant to multiple pathogens but did not grow faster on a poor diet (Article link).

Herbivorous insects unavoidably eat large and diverse communities of non-entomopathogenic microbes, which live on the surface of their host plants. Previous studies suggest that consuming non-entomopathogenic bacteria may induce a costly immune response that might decrease the risk of infection by pathogens. But isn’t it wasteful for an insect upregulate a costly immune response to non-pathogens that it ingests with every meal? Within an appropriate ecological context, we show that cabbage looper, Trichoplusia ni, larvae do not induce a costly immune response, indicating that they are adapted to consuming non-pathogenic bacteria that are commonly found on the surface of their host plants (Article link).

From Kate Pare, on an article published by a group of undergraduates taking the Arctic Ecology field course at the University of Guelph:

Our study focused on changes in ant diversity in the area surrounding Churchill, Manitoba between the historic collections made by Robert E. Gregg in 1969 and collections made by students and instructors of the Arctic ecology field course in 2012. Seven ant species were collected in 2012 compared to the five species recorded from 1969. This increase in species richness in the 2012 collection is more likely a result of cryptic molecular diversity that was overlooked in the collection made in 1969 (Article Link, post on the ESC blog).

Members of the Arctic Ecology Field course 2015 (Photo: Eric Scott).

The ESC Student Affairs Committee will be continuing to help publicize graduate student publications to the wider entomological community through our Research Roundup. If you published an article recently and would like it featured, e-mail us at entsoccan.students@gmail.com.

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