I would like to thank everyone for their kind expressions of sympathy on the passing of my father. Your understanding and support has meant a great deal to me. -Steve Lasley

Chris Tipping has taken a job with EPAR in Searcy, AR starting the first week in June working with mosquitoes.  He will be travelling to Japan and Puerto Rico in June and then South Africa in August. 

Dr. James P. Cuda was awarded $3000 from the Dean's Office to support an undergraduate student for the summer as part of the College of Agriculture's Honors Program.  The student's name is Yen Dao and she will be assisting Dr. Cuda in evaluating the hydrilla tip-mining midge Cricotopus lebetis. 

Tom Fasulo attended the National Town Meeting on Sustainable America in Detroit during May 1-5.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had several booths in the exhibit hall and one was dedicated to School IPM. The EPA requested that Tom demonstrate the national School IPM WWW site that Phil Koehler, Clay Scherer and he developed.  Tom said he missed Al Gore's speech, but more than made up for it at the all-you-can-eat-and-drink evening entertainment provided by the Ford and GM motor companies.

Marjorie A. Hoy traveled to Kyoto, Japan for the 4th International Symposium on Population Dynamics of Plant-Inhabiting Mites, May 10-14, 1999 to present an invited symposium talk.  Kyoto is a beautiful city that contains thousands of temples and other historic sites.  She also traveled to Tsukuba (the national science center outside Tokyo) to present an invited symposium talk at the Japanese Society of Applied Entomology and Zoology on May 17.  On the way home, she celebrated her longest birthday because she crossed the international dateline and experienced two May 19ths.

Norm Leppla attended the Southeastern U.S. Greenhouse Vegetable Growers Conference and Trade Show at the American Society for Plasticulture's 28th National Agricultural Plastics Conference on May 19-20 in Tallahassee.  The vegetable conference was masterfully organized and chaired by Bob Hochmuth of IFAS Extension.  It addressed global production of vegetables, primarily tomatoes and peppers, using hydroponic culture in greenhouses covered with plastic.  During the last six years, nearly 400 acres of greenhouses for vegetable production have been built in Texas (112), Arizona (108), Colorado (94), California (30), New Mexico (20) and Nevada (12).  Mexico has erected 1200 acres of greenhouses and is rapidly expanding its capability.  The Netherlands, Belgium and Spain have a total of 33,000 acres of greenhouse tomatoes.  Florida, with its huge market for tomatoes, has only 12 acres in production because the climate is both hot and humid.  The growers would like to use screens to exclude insects but critical airflow is impeded.  The primary insect problem is the silverleaf whitefly, as it transmits the devastating tomato yellow leaf curl geminivirus.

Dr. James P. Cuda traveled to Washington, D.C., during the week of 26 April. He was invited to participate as a member of the FY 1999 Biologically Based Pest Management peer review panel for the USDA's National Research Initiative Competitive Grants Program.

Dr. James P. Cuda was invited to present papers at two conferences. Cuda attended the 19th Annual Meeting of the Florida Native Plant Society held at the Palm Coast Resort, Flagler County, 6-9 May,  where he presented the paper,"Overview of Classical Biological Control: The Brazilian Peppertree Story", co-authored by Drs. Julio Medal and Dale Habeck. He also presented the paper, "Classical Biological Control of Brazilian Peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolius): What's Up?" at the 14th Annual Meeting of the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council, Holiday University Center, Gainesville, 24-27 May. 

Denmark, H.A., G.A. Evans, H. Aguilar, C. Vargas and R. Ochoa. 1999. Phytoseiidae of Central America. Indira Publishing House, Bloomfield, Michigan,125 pp. Cost: $82 + $5 shipping.

Publication includes the description of 2 new genera, 38 new species, 228 illustrations, keys to the subfamilies, genera and species, host plant table, distribution table, valid name list, and references to the Central American Phytoseiidae.  This publication is available through the Indira Publishing House, PO Box 250456, West Bloomfield, Michigan 48325-0456.

Alvarez, J.M., Van Driesche, R. and Cornell, J.  1999.  Effect of Encarsia sp. nr. diaspidicola (Hymenoptera: Aphelinidae) parasitism on Cybocephalus sp. nr. nipponicus (Coleoptera: Cybocephalidae) egg laying choices.  Biological Control 15, 57-63.

C.J. DeLoach and J.P. Cuda. 1999. Host specificity of the Argentine root-boring weevil, Heilipodus ventralis (Coleoptera: Curculionidae), a potential biocontrol agent for snakeweeds (Gutierrezia: Asteraceae) in western North American rangelands- U.S. quarantine tests. Biological Control 15(3): 185-209.

Dr. Julio Medal traveled to Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil April 26 to May 5, 1999 to coordinate tropical soda apple research activities with cooperating researchers of the USDA-Biological Control Lab in Hurlingham, Buenos Aires Province,  the INTA-Agricultural Experiment Station in Cerro Azul, Misiones Province (Argentina), and the University of Uruguay in Montevideo. During his trip, Medal also surveyed eggplant fields to corroborate plant/insect associations in open field conditions. Medal also collected natural enemies of tropical soda apple and Brazilian peppertree for host-specificity studies in Gainesville-quarantine.

Biological control research activities for tropical soda apple has been funded since February 1997 by the USDA-APHIS, and by the Interstate Pest-Control Compact Fund through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Division of Plant Industry. Medal expect to have approved for field release two leaf-feeding chrysomelid beetles (Metriona elatior & Gratiana boliviana) before the beginning of the next century. This research has been conducted in cooperation with Dr. Dale Habeck, Dr. Jim Cuda, Judy Gillmore, and Bob Weston from the Entomology & Nematology Department in Gainesville. 

Dr. Moray Anderson, a visiting professor with the department, spent May 18-21 working in Tom Fasulo's lab on a WWW site covering filth-breeding flies.  He will be returning often to continue his work with Tom and Phil Koehler. Moray is employed by Kill-Germ, Europe's largest urban pest control distributor, and lives in the U.K. 

Publications

Medley, J.C. and T.R. Fasulo. Florida Butterflies #2 - Computer Tutorial. UF/IFAS SW-133. Available: http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/fasulo/pests/software

Featured Creatures

http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/creatures/

Mead, F.W. (May, 1999). Hawthorn lace bug, Corythucha cydoniae (Fitch).

Grissell, E.E., (May, 1999). Hornets and yellowjackets, Vespula spp.

Weems, H.V., and J.L. Nation. Oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel).

Best of the Bugs

The Department has created an award for WWW sites that contribute significantly to the knowledge of entomology and nematology available on the World Wide Web (WWW). To qualify for the award, the sites must be considered to be in the top 5% of all WWW sites devoted to entomology and nematology.  These sites may display an "Best of the Bugs" logo designed by Jane Medley.  Judging is done by a six-person committee drawn from the department.  The UF-Best of the Bugs WWW site, which list the first WWW sites to win the award, is located at http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/fasulo/pests/bestbugs/;

The Linnean team, who will competing next spring is looking for a coach.  Any faculty interested should contact Mary Donohue. 

"The Illusion of Orderly Progress" by Barbara Norfleet, with a foreword by Edward O. Wilson http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0375405585/ref=ad_aa1 Barbara Norfleet's bugs are more human than humans. In this remarkable collection of photographs, Norfleet has posed insects and arachnids in dioramas that profoundly illustrate the failings and foibles of our own species. In his foreword, entomologist E.O. Wilson notes, "The artist means to tell us something about human nature, particularly in its more vainglorious, cowardly, and other foolish manifestations."

Photos of human workers engaged in meaningless toil would make a somewhat overdone point, but Norfleet's carefully posed insects and strange, barren landscapes pull us away from the familiar just enough to make us see things we might have missed. Her gorgeous and rare insects are so peculiar, so engagingly presented that they provoke brand-new reactions to such activities as capital punishment, domestication of other animals, and war. In one photo entitled "Little Time for Whimsy," a line of serious beetles works hard at pushing their burdens--Where? Why? And for how long? You may as well ask why some of us voluntarily sit in cubicles eight hours a day. Another diorama ("Am I Pretty?") gently mocks vanity as a group of garishly colored tropical beetles competes for the gold star that will presumably bring ultimate satisfaction. Insect society seems to have a lot in common with our own. Besides the thoughtful and clever poses, each photo affords a close look at some of the most amazing creatures you'll ever see. It's a wonderland of entomological ecstasy.

-Ellen M. Morrison

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Editor: Michael Patnaude

This version of the newsletter is prepared for the Web by Kathryn Jones.

May 1999. Updated May 2003.