NEWSLETTER
06/17/96 Entomology and Nematology News - Vol. 1, No. 9
A University of Florida Publication

AWARDS

Dr. Don Hall is currently in Minnesota attending the National Association of Teachers in Ag (NACTA) where he will receive the Regional Award for Outstanding Teaching and be inducted as a NACTA Teaching Fellow. Earlier this spring Don received the SEB ESA Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching and is the Branch nominee for the ESA National Achievement Award in Teaching.

President Lombardi and VP Davidson have announced that Dr. John Strayer has been promoted to the rank of Distinguished Service Professor. Congratulations John!

FACULTY, STAFF AND STUDENTS NEWS

Dr. John Capinera will return as department chair on July 1st. He has been on sabbatical since January 1, 1996. A big thank you goes to Dr. Freddie Johnson for agreeing to be an "administrator" and serving as interim chair during Capinera's absence.

Pauline Lawrence was invited to chair a workshop session at the National Science Foundation on "Multidisciplinary Research - a case study of stress and stress-induced responses." The workshop was organized (via the University of Chicago) to demonstrate the importance of the multidisciplinary approach in addressing scientific questions and to recommend to the NSF, ways in which it might support multidisciplinary research, particularly in training graduate and undergraduate students to be competitive in tomorrow's job market.

Drs. James Cuda, Howard Frank and George O'Meara participated in the Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Workshop. The purpose of the two-day workshop was to discuss Florida's non-indigenous aquatic nuisance species issues for a report to the U.S. Congress. The workshop was held at the Southeastern Biological Science Center on 21 and 22 May and was sponsored by the United States Department of the Interior, National Biological Survey. Dr. 0'Meara surprised most of the participants when he reported that he recently discovered a new Culex mosquito inhabiting tank bromeliads in south Florida.

Thomas Fasulo will be in Scotland July 5-18. Somehow he was able to convince UF to allow him to take two weeks to ground proof the Edinburgh Malt Whiskey Tour WWW site. He'll try and fit in the International Urban Pest Conference if he has the time.

The Department of Entomology and Nematology welcomes Bob Stewart back to Florida after a two month stay in Dundee, Scotland. Bob received a grant from the National Science Foundation allowing him to work in Dundee on the volatile attractants of Culicoides midges.

AQUATIC GARDEN

Have you noticed the improved appearance of our aquatic garden? If not, please take a look. The credit goes to Matt Roberts, about to begin his senior year as a student in Environmental Horticulture, and his mentor, Dr. Mike Kane. Matt has taken on the role of maintaining our aquatic garden, and has spent many hours cleaning up the area, repotting and fertilizing plants, adding new and interesting plants, and placing a filter on the pump to help keep down floating particulate matter. If you run into Matt out there, please let him know how much you appreciate his efforts. Grover Smart, Member Landscape Committee.

FALL REGISTRATION FEES

Debbie Hall wants students to know that late registration fee has gone up to $100 and that fees for fall semester will be increased. Register on time!!

PRESENTATIONS

Philip Koehler and Thomas Fasulo gave a full day of presentations on household and lawn and ornamental pests to Lake County pest control operators and master gardeners on May 6th.

LATIN-AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGY CONGRESS

The Latin-American Entomology Congress was held from May 25-30 in Merida Yucatan. Julio Medal (Ent/Nem), Emile Van Handel (Vero Beach), Phil Lounibos (Vero Beach), Bill Howard (Ft. Lauderdale), and Howard Frank (Ent/Nem), participated in a symposium of Population Dynamics of Vectors organized by Dr. P. Lounibos. Congratulations to Dr. H. Frank on his poster award. Manuel Balcazar (recent department alumnus) also participated in the congress.

ENTOMOLOGY AND NEMATOLOGY ENROLLMENT

According to the summer enrollment statistics released by the Dean's office the Department of Entomology and Nematology has had the largest percentage undergraduate enrollment increase in the college (136%). Summer undergraduate enrollment is 45 and it is anticipated the fall enrollment will be near 90. If you see strange faces around the department they are probably one of our new students. Make them feel at home! On the graduate side the department now has the 3rd highest percentage enrollment increase in the College.

NEW STUDENTS

The department welcomes Jason Squitier and Juan Alvarez. Jason will be working on his M.S. program and Juan on his Ph.D. program.

HOME PAGES

Whether they like it or not, Drs. James Cuda (Ent/Nem) and Gary Buckingham (USDA) are webmasters. Their WWW site is the International Organization of Biological Control, Nearctic Region, Weed Working Group home page and it is located at http://bioweed.ifas.ufl.edu Some screens are still under development, but these will grow and change as members of the group make additions. The page was developed with the assistance of Andy Miller who works for Thomas Fasulo.

The Molecular Biology Techniques Course in the Entomology and Nematology Department is now on the WWW! Many thanks to our graduate student expert Jaw-Ching Liu (Leo) for his efforts on this project. Since this course is still in progress, our page is under construction and is undergoing constant revision. Therefore, please forgive any errors! Your suggestions are most welcome.

HERBICIDE IN THE NATURAL AREA

The Natural Area and Outdoor Teaching Laboratory (NATL) is managed with the goal of restoring and maintaining three major upland ecosystems: hammock, upland pine, and old field succession. To make successional stages continuously available for teaching and study, the Natural Area Advisory Committee plans to restart succession at staggered times on five plots and to allow the succession on these to run for 1-3, 10, and 40 years before repeating. However, Johnsongrass and elephantgrass presently so dominate the cleared areas in NATL that native plants are crowded out and little succession can occur. For significant succession to occur in the cleared areas of NATL, these two nonnative grasses must be eliminated. As a first step, they were sprayed on June 14 with the herbicide Roundup. The sprayed areas will look scorched for a few weeks but will recover. At least one more application of Roundup will be required before control of the two grasses is at all complete. For more information, check out NATL's Web site at: http://csssrvr.entnem.ufl.edu/~walker/natl.htm.

URBAN PESTS SOFTWARE

In 1992, Drs. Philip Koehler and Eugene Gerberg, and Thomas Fasulo developed a 60 MB software program on urban pests and their control called the Whitmire Information Technology Transfer System (WITTS) for Whitmire Research Laboratory of St. Louis. A recent article in Pest Control Technology magazine said that, "WITTS has been applauded by the industry for its versatility and ease of use." Thomas Fasulo and Dan Nichols, OPS employee for Fasulo, have just completed a major upgrade of WITTS that will be available this summer. Jane Medley, Jim Castner and some of Dr. Koehler's former students also significantly contributed to the program.

NEED A MONITOR?

Thomas Fasulo has a NEC Multisync monitor with a VGA cable and SVGA adapter available if anyone can use this piece of equipment. It's IFAS property, so it needs to be transferred through Sharon's office.


A hard copy of this newsletter is given to department members in Building 970 only. All others can obtain an electronic subscription by joining the listserv.

The next newsletter will be published Monday, July 15. Deadline for contributions is Wednesday, July 10.

Editor: Enrique Perez

This version of the newsletter is published for the Web by Tim McCoy.


June 1996. Updated March 2003.