The lab at Entomological Society of America 59th Annual Meeting

November 17th, 2011

Three lab members attended ESA this year.

Sophie presented "The molecular physiology of insect sterol nutrition: novel targets and strategies to control crop pests" to the Program Symposium on The Molecular Physiology of Arthropod Vectors and Pests, organized by Omprakash Mittapalli and Peter Piermarini.  Sophie's presentation included published and more recent work conducted in collaboration with Spence Behmer (Texas A&M) and Bob Grebenok (Canisius College).  We thank AFRI/USDA for financial support.

Calum presented "From Proteomics to Insect Function in the pea aphid Acyrthosiphon pisum" to the Symposium on Advances in Plant Insect Vectors using -Omic Approaches", organized by Michelle Cilia and Cecilia Tamborindeguy.  Calum's presentation included published and more recent work on the bacterial symbiosis and bacteriocytes in pea aphids.  We thank NSF for financial support.

Angela presented the Founders' Memorial Lecture in honor and memory of Professor Reg Chapman. 

Dr. Reginald Frederick Chapman, the subject of Dr. Douglas’s speech, had the unusual ability to combine exacting original research with inspired teaching. His early career in Africa encouraged a broad approach and exercised his curiosity about the natural world. Later, at Birkbeck College, he had responsibility for an M.Sc. course in entomology, most of which, initially, he taught by himself.

This gave him a very wide grasp of entomology and provided the basis for his extremely successful book, The Insects: Structure and Function. First published in 1969, The Insects has become widely accepted as a graduate text throughout the English-speaking world. The text is arguably one of the most influential books in entomology in the last 50 years, and it was the best selling of the five textbooks he authored.

The scientific contributions for which Reg is most renowned were studies on insect-plant interactions, especially sensory and behavioural aspects of food selection, mainly in locusts and grasshoppers. Reg was one of the first to make quantitative observations of insects in the field, and to combine lab and field studies.

Even after over 100 publications establishing his international reputation for work on food selection, his later years saw publications on plastron respiration in an arachnid, muscle degeneration, and the electrophysiology of olfaction in a whip spider. It is arguable that if he had adopted the approach of most of his contemporaries and confined his attentions to a single theme, sometimes using a single technique, then he would have made a more telling mark and gained greater acclaim. That, however, was never an issue for Reg; the science was the important thing, not the glory.