ENY-6665, Advanced Medical & Veterinary Entomology, 4 Credits

                                                              Distance Education

 

My goal for this distance education class is to maintain the same schedule as students taking the class on campus and in the classroom.  Lecture CDs, syllabus, course schedule, class notes, and assignments are available from the course website (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/koehler/eny4660/) for download. You will have to email the instructor to obtain the password for the site.  The following is a general concept for keeping on schedule:

            Lectures M W-- Lectures should be accomplished on or before the date listed

            Laboratories F-- Assignments due and submitted to instructor by email on date listed

           

Instructor:                  Philip G. Koehler

Office:                                    Urban Entomology Building, Bldg 1278

Phone:                        352-392-2484

Email:                         pgk@ufl.edu

Office Hours:             8:00-5:00 weekdays

Course Website:        http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/koehler/eny4660/

 

Co-Course Requirement: ENY 6665L

 

Course Description: This course presents the major insect, mite, and tick vectors of disease to man and animals.  Students will learn to identify and understand the life cycles, morphology, and behavior  of  mosquitoes, ticks, mites, lice, fleas, and other disease vectors. Students also will learn about major arthropod-transmitted disease cycles, including malaria, Lyme disease, West Nile virus, leishmaniasis, and plague.  The interaction between the disease-causing pathogen and the arthropod vector will be covered, including biological and mechanical transmission of pathogens as well as the mechanical damage that a parasite inflicts on its host.

 

Special Research Project: Special research project must be approved by instructor, and should be an in-depth review of the scientific literature.  The research project report must be written as a scientific paper in Entomological Society of America format.  Powerpoint presentation and written script will be a 10 minute scientific paper suitable for presentation at a scientific meeting. Student has the option of presenting the research project orally, on site in Gainesville, or by submission of the presentation and script for a grade

 

Grading:  The course is based on 500 total points:

            Midterm --                               200 points

            Final exam –                            200 points

            Special research topic --          100 points

 

Text:  Gary Mullen and Lance Durden.  2009.  Medical and Veterinary Entomology, 2nd Edition. Academic Press. ISBN #: 978-0-12-372500-4.

 

Grading scale (%):

            94-100             A

            90-<94             A-

            87-<90             B+

            83-<87             B

            80-<83             B-

            77-<80             C+

74-<77             C

70-<74             C-

67-<70             D+

64-<67             D

60-<64             D-

<60                  E

 

 

Class CDs: Contain lectures, reading assignments, class notes, class schedule, and syllabus.  The CDs should be downloaded or will be provided

 

Lecture Notebook:  Print this on your own from the CD.  You can have it printed/bound at a copy store if you desire.

 

Academic Honesty:

As a result of completing the registration form at the University of Florida, every student has signed the following statement: “I understand that the University of Florida expects its students to be honest in all their academic work. I agree to adhere to this commitment to academic honesty and understand that my failure to comply with this commitment may result in disciplinary action up to and including expulsion from the University”.

 

We, the members of the University of Florida, pledge to hold ourselves and peers to the highest standards of honesty and integrity.

 

UF Counseling Services:

Resources are available on campus for students having personal problems or lacking clear career and academic goals which interfere with their academic performance. These resources include:

1. University Counseling Center, 302 Peabody Hall, 392-1575 personal and career counseling

2. Student Mental Health, Student Health Care Center, 392-1171, personal counseling

3. Sexual Assault Recovery Services, Student Health Center, 392-1161, sexual counseling

4. Career Resource Center, Reitz Union, 392-1601, career development assistance and counseling

 

Software Use:

All faculty, staff and students of the University are required and expected to obey the laws and legal agreements governing software use. Failure to do so can lead to monetary damage and/or criminal penalties for the individual violator. Because such violations are against University policies and rules, disciplinary action will be taken, as appropriate.

 

Information for Students with Disabilities:

Students with disabilities are encouraged to register with the Office for Student Services to determine the appropriate classroom accommodations. Any student requesting classroom accommodations must be registered with the Dean of Students Office, P202 Peabody Hall, 392-1261(TDD - 392-3008), and have documentation on file in the office of Student Services in order to receive classroom and/or examination accommodations.  For students with hearing disabilities trying to contact an office that does not list a TDD, please contact the Florida Relay Service at 1-800-955-8771.

 

UF Policy on E-mail:

“Official University business email will be communicated to students using the University GatorLink email account. That is, official email will be sent exclusively to GatorLinkUserName@ufl.edu. The preferred email address recorded for all students will be the GatorLink address.  This is the email address displayed in the online phonebook. Students may continue to use the forwarding mechanism to deliver their email to other mail services, if they wish. However, it is the student’s responsibility to insure that the forwarding address is current so that they receive official communications from the University”.

 

          Course Directions

Log onto the course website (http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/koehler/eny4660/) using the password provided by the instructor.

    1. Click on Lecture CDs
    2. Click on desired CD Download (e.g., ENY 4660  CD1)
    3. If yellow security bar appears, click and allow download
    4. Extract the zip files to a zipfolder and then to CD or hard drive

 

1.  Read the assignment in textbook for each class before listening to the lecture.

2.  Print the lecture notes for each class.  You may want to go to a copy store to have the notes printed and bound.

3.  Put lecture notebook and pen/pencil at a convenient place in front of a computer.

            A. You will need sound so make sure the computer has speakers and sound capabilities turned on.

4.  Insert CD into computer.  It should autoload.  If autoload is turned off:

            A. Windows

            1.  Go to Windows desktop.

            2.  Double click “My computer”

            3.  Double click on the “.exe” file

            B.  Mac :  the CD will not work properly on a Mac computer

4.  Each lecture has

            A. A title slide that has the time you need to plan for completion of each lecture.

            B. An objectives slide that presents the objectives of each lecture.

            C. Content slides that present the lecture information

            D. Practice essay questions slide

            E. A closing video that summarizes the information and presents the next reading assignment.

4. View each slide. Start each lecture by clicking on the menu on the left.  Sound or video is played automatically for each slide.

            A. The next slide is advanced automatically.

            B. You can control the sound/video volume and replay sound by sliding the bar controls.

            C.  Video can be advanced or rewound by sliding the bar under the video.

            C. You can go to other slides by clicking on the menu at the left side of screen.

5.  As each slide is playing sound, take notes in the lecture notes.

 

Lecture Subjects

1. Introduction to Med & Vet Entomology

2. Classification of Arthropod-borne diseases

3. Hematophagy, disease transmission and epidemiology

4. Flies (Diptera) of Medical and Veterinary Importance

5. Moth flies: Leishmaniasis and Bartonellosis

6. Biting Midges (Ceratapogonidae)

7. Mosquito Taxonomy, Biology, and Behavior

8. Mosquito viruses: EEE, VEE, SLE, Yellow fever, West Nile virus

9. Mosquito surveillance

10. Malaria

11. Horse flies, Deer Flies: EIA, Anaplasmosis

12. Muscid flies

13. Myiasis (Muscoidea)

14. Myiasis (Skin Bots and Grubs) and Louse flies

15. Black flies of Medical and Veterinary Importance

16. Filariasis: Mansonellosis, Onchocerciasis

18. Lice of Medical and Veterinary Importance

19. Rickettsial Diseases: Epidemic Typhus, etc.

20. Mites: Rickettsialpox and Tsutsugamushi

21. Mites and Acariasis: Mange, Scabies, Chiggers

22. Spiders and Scorpions

23. Fleas (Siphonaptera) of Medical and Veterinary Importance

24. Plague and Murine Typhus

25. Ticks of Medical and Veterinary Importance

26. Lyme disease, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Tularemia

27. True Bugs (Hemiptera): Kissing bugs and Bedbugs

28. Chagas Disease

29. Tsetse flies

30. Lepidoptera and Hymenoptera

 

Research Report Requirements

 

  1. Select a specific topic. You may want to select from the list of topics that have been addressed in recent Annual Review of Entomology articles.
  2. Your job is to dig up and read as many of the original literature papers as possible on the subject and summarize them for publication as an Annual Review of Entomology article of your own.
  3. Update the publications with more current literature.
  4. Include pertinent data tables and graphs from other researchers in the article.
  5. The article must be written in Entomological Society of America format.  The style manual is located at:

http://www.entsoc.org/pubs/PUBLISH/index.html#ESA's%20Style%20Guide

  1. The article must be at least 12 double-spaced pages in length.  It should be set up as a manuscript ready for submission to ESA.  I will take off for bad formatting.
  2. The sections must be Title page, Abstract, Key Words, Body of Report, Literature Cited, Tables, List of Figures, and Figures on separate pages.

 

In addition to the report, I expect you to prepare a Powerpoint presentation on the subject of the report.  The Powerpoint presentation should be in a format for presentation as a 10-minute paper at the ESA annual meeting.  I expect the Powerpoint presentation to follow the material in the research report and be scripted so you could go to ESA and present the talk by reading the script.

 

Some Examples of Topics

Role of arthropod saliva in blood feeding.

Molecular systematics of Anopheles

Manipulation of medically important insect vectors by their parasites

Feather mites (Acari: Astigmata): ecology, behavior, and evolution.

The ascendancy of Amblyomma americanum as a vector of pathogens affecting humans in the United States.

Invasions by insect vectors of human disease.

Arthropod allergens and human health.

Iron metabolism in insects.

Predicting St. Louis encephalitis virus epidemics

Mating strategies and spermiogenesis in ixodid ticks.

Medicinal maggots: an ancient remedy for some contemporary afflictions.

Culicoides biting midges: their role as arbovirus vectors.

Emerging and resurging vector borne diseases.

Malaria parasite development in mosquitoes.

The biology, ecology, and management of the cat flea.

Bionomics of the face fly, Musca autumnalis.

Host immunity to ticks.

Culicoides variipennis and bluetongue-virus epidemiology in the United States.

Evolution of ticks.

Malaria: current and future prospects for control.

Tick salivary gland physiology.

Mosquito sugar feeding and reproductive energetics.

Onchocerciasis vector control: a chronological summary with comments on eradication, reinvasion, and insecticide resistance.