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Students Receive High Honors at SWBESA Annual Meeting
A number of students and faculty enjoyed the comforts of the Dallas/Fort Worth Marriott Hotel & Golf Club (formerly the Doral Tesoro Hotel and Golf Club) on February 22-26 during the annual Southwestern Branch of the Entomological Society of America meeting.
The highlight of the four day event was when Robert Puckett's name was announced as the recipient of this year's John Henry Comstock Graduate Student Award.
Puckett is one of five graduate students in the nation to receive this award, which helps to promote interest in entomology in the graduate level and in attending the national annual meeting. In addition to receiving a certificate, he will get a $100 cash prize and an all-expenses-paid trip package to the ESA national annual meeting.
In addition, Puckett took second place in the student oral presentations that took place on February 23. Puckett's presentation was titled "Nocturnal Foraging Behavioral Dynamics of Red Imported Fire Ants (Solenopsis Invicta Buren) in the Presence And Absence of Pseudacteon Phorid Flies." Puckett worked with Dr. Marvin Harris on the research.
Professor Marvin Harris was impressed with Puckett's hard work.
"Robert is continuing to develop into a strong scientist and I am proud that his accomplishments were recognized at the SWBESA meetings," Harris said "He is an asset to our department and his work furthers the mission of this great Land Grant University."
Alejandro Calixto received the third place award for the oral presentation titled "Canopy and Ground Dwelling Spiders in Pecan In Central Texas." Calixto worked alongside Allen Dean and Marvin Harris from the Department and Texas AgriLife Extension entomologist Allen Knutson and program specialist Bill Ree.
"Alejandro has an excellent background in ecology begun in the rain forest of Colombia and bolstered by field experience with pelagic birds in Canada. His studies at Texas A&M have concentrated on the ant mosaic in Texas, focusing on how to use poison baits to reduce fire ants and benefit other resident ants so they will compete with the fire ant as well, he said. "He also has a strong program investigating the role of spiders in the agroecosystem, especially in pecans and rangeland. He is an excellent student,"
Entomological knowledge was also put to the test as several graduate and undergraduate students participated in this year's Linnaean Games. This year, one of our groups will be heading to the national competition. The undergrads participating included Brittney Bane, Patricia Mullins, Morris and Peredo. Graduate students that competed were Ricardo Hernandez, Brad Hopkins, Shawn Hanrahan, Jonathan King and Aubrey Colvin.
The graduate student team will be heading to the national competition later this year at the ESA's national meeting at Reno, NV. from November 16-19.
Other presentations by entomology faculty included "Differential Foraging Response to Racially Derived Blends of Brood Pheromone in the Honey Bee" by Brad Metz and Tanya Pankiw and "Effect of Pollen Diet and Honey Bee (Apis Mellifera) Primer Pheromones on Worker Bee Mandibular Glands.
Allen Dean, John Jackman and Texas Parks and Wildlife entomologist Mike Quinn spoke about the large spider web at Lake Tawakoni and Associate Professor and Extension entomologist David Kerns gave his presentation titled "Impact of Insecticides Targeting Woolly Whitefly on Citrus Thrips and Mites on Citrus."