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FALL-WINTER 2024
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SUMMER (formerly WINTER) 2024
- The lab is settling in to Melbourne! More soon as we get set up...
FALL 2023
- It is official. I am now a tenured, Associate Professor. Yay!
- Big News... The lab is moving to the University of Melbourne, Australia! I will begin as a Senior Lecturer (US-Associate level equivalent) in 2024.
- As we prepare for the big move I may be slow to respond to emails and I am not taking any new students or scientists. Information on applying to University of Melbourne can be found here.
Spring-Summer 2023. Since the last update, we've been busy.
- The lab moved to its temporary space as Batchelor Hall undergoes renovations. Now we just need to find everything!
- Jasmine wrapped up her time here with loads of plant parasite measurements. Congrats on your summer position at the Kew! We can't wait to hear what's next.
- My tenure file moved forward with positive reviews from the department and external (redacted) letters! Now awaiting their decision...
- The 8th International Plant Gall Symposium in Chico, CA in July was a great time to catch up with and meet new gall enthusiasts.
- Field sampling saw monsoons and more bears.
- Our Tamalia inquilinus genome is nearing its draft stage!
- A large optimal phenotype experiment was completed (and ended by late July heat waves).
- Several collaborative pubs are in press and we are busy writing up more data.
- Students are moving through their qualifying exams
- and... there is more big news to come.
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Fall 2022-Winter 2023. In the past few months we've wrapped up our year-long internship program, Summer GRaPEs, sponsored by UCOP. What a wonderful experience! To top it off, ALL participants won awards at the Emerging Researchers National Conference in Washington DC on February 9. This would not have been possible without our wonderful mentors here at UCR and at VSU. But most importantly, this would not have been possible without all the hard work from our students!
Kyra Harvey - 3rd place, Ecology Makayla Drew - 2nd place, Ecology Ebenezer Faidoo - 1st place, Biological Sciences The lab continues its work on funded projects as we transition to a new year with new expectations. We welcomed a visiting scientist from Manchester University, Jasmine, who will be with us until Spring as she explores how N alters haustoria formation in native hemiparasites. We celebrated Conner with his Newel Award for research from EEOB! We also are excited to see some collaborative work get out: Check out our transcriptome analysis of aphid resistance in cowpea and stay tuned for the chromosome-level genome assembly on grape phylloxera. |
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Summer 2022. Summer has been an adventure. We wrapped up our Manzanita aphid sampling, the first wave of woolly apple aphid sampling, and an experiment on adaptation. Jacob and our new REU intern, Brandi, ran an experiment to evaluate native vs novel tradeoffs in our phylloxera system. Brandi just completed her symposium and headed back to Georgia to finish school. Good luck Brandi!
In the waning time before fall we are excited to finish a few more experiments. Stay tuned... |
Brandi presenting her data and glad not to be in the hot greenhouse anymore!
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Winter and Spring. 2022
With teaching over for the term, we have spent our time making progress on funded projects. The lab helped out to sample new Manzanita aphid populations for the population genetics survey. We've finally completed part one of our adaptation experiment for our phylloxera project and the woolly apple aphid trial in the Netherlands is up and running. Summer field surveys, greenhouse experiments and analyses, and new interns are up and running. More details on those in the coming weeks.
Nate formally joined the lab!
With teaching over for the term, we have spent our time making progress on funded projects. The lab helped out to sample new Manzanita aphid populations for the population genetics survey. We've finally completed part one of our adaptation experiment for our phylloxera project and the woolly apple aphid trial in the Netherlands is up and running. Summer field surveys, greenhouse experiments and analyses, and new interns are up and running. More details on those in the coming weeks.
Nate formally joined the lab!
The years end, 2021
Jacob joined the lab through the U-SPARC program and will be exploring effector-based manipulation of plant defense pathways. Welcome Jacob!
Our mistletoe work generated one last story for the year found on Modern Farmer, and a cool haiku; tis the season! This paper has made its rounds, so we are excited about what 2022 holds as we continue to develop the project
Jacob joined the lab through the U-SPARC program and will be exploring effector-based manipulation of plant defense pathways. Welcome Jacob!
Our mistletoe work generated one last story for the year found on Modern Farmer, and a cool haiku; tis the season! This paper has made its rounds, so we are excited about what 2022 holds as we continue to develop the project
October 2021.
I am happy to announce we received funding from the USDA-NIFA-SCRI to continue our exploration of wooly aphid - apple interactions! We are hiring a postdoc with interest and experience in insect genome annotation and populations genomics as part of this project. See here.
Miranda also received an Advancing Agricultural Science Opportunities for Native Americans (AASONA) Research Award from the Native American Agricultural Fast Track Fund (NAAFT) as part of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) to advance her work on host-parasite interactions. Congratulations Miranda!!
I am happy to announce we received funding from the USDA-NIFA-SCRI to continue our exploration of wooly aphid - apple interactions! We are hiring a postdoc with interest and experience in insect genome annotation and populations genomics as part of this project. See here.
Miranda also received an Advancing Agricultural Science Opportunities for Native Americans (AASONA) Research Award from the Native American Agricultural Fast Track Fund (NAAFT) as part of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society (AISES) to advance her work on host-parasite interactions. Congratulations Miranda!!
June-September 2021
Hellllloooooo Falllllll! We are very excited to begin a new quarter. A lot has happened this year as we sought to return to normal after being closed for most of 2020.
The lab has grown! Conner and Miranda joined this fall to work on ecology and evolution of plants, especially with regard to parasitizing organisms.
We had an adventurous field season collecting galls on Manzanita as part of a recently funded California Conservation Genomics Project. Our genome is in prep and we are organizing our samples for resequencing.
We also received funds from:
Hellllloooooo Falllllll! We are very excited to begin a new quarter. A lot has happened this year as we sought to return to normal after being closed for most of 2020.
The lab has grown! Conner and Miranda joined this fall to work on ecology and evolution of plants, especially with regard to parasitizing organisms.
We had an adventurous field season collecting galls on Manzanita as part of a recently funded California Conservation Genomics Project. Our genome is in prep and we are organizing our samples for resequencing.
We also received funds from:
- the California Department of Food and Agriculture to continue work on evolution in grape-phylloxera interactions. Read more about that here.
- the University of California Office of the President (UCOP) to build a training program for undergraduates interesting in pursuing graduate school. Our first partner is Virginia State University. Read more about that here.
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April-May 2021
It's been a busy spring. Two students are joining the lab through EEOB. Welcome Conner and Miranda! We also joined the California Conservation Genomics Project (CCGP) and have headed out to the field to sample across ecoregions for the Manzanita Gall Aphid (Tamalia coweni). Read more about this on our project webpage! In some good news... Liming was featured on the Botany Society of America webpage We received some funds to study host adaptation. Yay! ...and the mountains of the Mojave desert are beautiful and very dry this year. |
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January-March 2021
Our mistletoe paper finally came out and is receiving press!
This is an exciting new system where we are following up on how competition determines host-parasite interactions, especially when trophic flexibility and relatedness play a role.
Recruitment is upon us as we look to add students to the lab. We are also beginning our research ramp up with new projects. A collaborative genome sequencing project is almost complete and should help us understand how gene and chromosome organization vary among species.
Dr. Adeel Zafar finally joined the lab!! There was a significant covid-related delay, but he is here now and we are excited for the next steps in our effector validation work. Welcome Adeel!
Our mistletoe paper finally came out and is receiving press!
This is an exciting new system where we are following up on how competition determines host-parasite interactions, especially when trophic flexibility and relatedness play a role.
Recruitment is upon us as we look to add students to the lab. We are also beginning our research ramp up with new projects. A collaborative genome sequencing project is almost complete and should help us understand how gene and chromosome organization vary among species.
Dr. Adeel Zafar finally joined the lab!! There was a significant covid-related delay, but he is here now and we are excited for the next steps in our effector validation work. Welcome Adeel!
September-December 2020...
The quarter ended. We finally finished the revisions to our plant parasite competition story and look forward to that and a new focal system in lab beginning Winter 2021.
The quarter ended. We finally finished the revisions to our plant parasite competition story and look forward to that and a new focal system in lab beginning Winter 2021.
August-September 2020...
We are back at school! Courses are online and research is crawling forward. Liming arrived and we are getting oriented to the next round of projects.
We are back at school! Courses are online and research is crawling forward. Liming arrived and we are getting oriented to the next round of projects.
May-July 2020...
The lab is slowly returning to research. Although undergraduates are not yet back, we added two new postdoctoral scientists. Liming Cai, who finished her PhD this July in the lab of Professor Chuck Davis at Harvard University. Congratulations on a successful defense! Liming will join this fall to work on comparative genomics on our lab systems. Also, Adeel Zafar, who recently finished his PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in late 2019, will join us this fall to move along our crispR and effector validation projects. Welcome Liming and Adeel!!
And finally, the phylloxera genome has been published! This is timely work given the recent outbreaks in Washington State. See here for media coverage (and a picture of Chaoyang and I collecting there a few years ago) and here for a similar story (and a reverse angle of the same dig!).
Our work was also highlighted in The Economist.
AND the press release at UCR was picked up by several news outlets. See the release for the most accurate account!
The lab is slowly returning to research. Although undergraduates are not yet back, we added two new postdoctoral scientists. Liming Cai, who finished her PhD this July in the lab of Professor Chuck Davis at Harvard University. Congratulations on a successful defense! Liming will join this fall to work on comparative genomics on our lab systems. Also, Adeel Zafar, who recently finished his PhD from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing in late 2019, will join us this fall to move along our crispR and effector validation projects. Welcome Liming and Adeel!!
And finally, the phylloxera genome has been published! This is timely work given the recent outbreaks in Washington State. See here for media coverage (and a picture of Chaoyang and I collecting there a few years ago) and here for a similar story (and a reverse angle of the same dig!).
Our work was also highlighted in The Economist.
AND the press release at UCR was picked up by several news outlets. See the release for the most accurate account!
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April 2020...
Wow. In light of the current circumstances, the lab has made some changes. More on this soon, but for now how about some photos of spring in Southern California |
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January-March 2020... A new year! Time has passed quickly. Rotation student Ryan Traband visited to work on phylloxera microbes and moved on to continue rotations. Kaitlin Chau-Giang joined the lab as an undergraduate worker. Welcome Kaitlin! We are grateful for your help organizing and excited to continue phenotyping grapes as we set up our summer experiments. We also welcomed Dr. Mohamed Ali, a joint postdoc in the Kaloshian-Nabity Lab collaboration on cowpea-aphid interactions. We also joined the Genetics, Genomics, and Bioinformatics Program to host graduate students. Finally we are recruiting a new postdoctoral scholar to work on genomics. It is a busy time!
September-December 2019... This quarter is going well, with several datasets at various stages in the publication process, although we are sad to see our lab members move on. Jiri finished his rotation and went home to the Czech Republic and Chaoyang moved to a position at the Salinity Lab nearby. Josh also successfully defended his thesis! Congratulations Josh!
We are excited about a new postdoc and graduate students joining in 2020, but for now I am enjoying the time to catch up on data.
We are excited about a new postdoc and graduate students joining in 2020, but for now I am enjoying the time to catch up on data.
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April-August 2019... We graduated two undergrads: Tamera left at the end of Winter quarter and Ashil left in Spring.
But we did celebrate all their hard work and even welcomed a new visiting graduate student, Jiri Skorepa, to the lab for the summer. Jiri visits from the Czech Republic and is working on plant hormones involved in gall formation. We also met with colleagues in Sacramento at the headquarters of the NGRA for a brainstorming session on grape pest management. Otherwise, this has been a busy summer of writing and preparing for our lab genomic collaborations to move forward. |
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January-March 2019... Winter Quarter has seen some exciting changes in the lab. Our Junior Specialist ended her time here to go on walkabout to see the world more before heading off to graduate school. Rotation student Alex moved on to his next rotation, and our undergraduate Tamera deposited her Honor's Thesis on grape phylloxera effectors. We have some upcoming presentations to showcase the lab work: University of Georgia, CIDVR at UCR, and PBESA in San Diego. Lab alumnus Timothy Dang was accepted into entomology graduate school at University of Nebraska; congratulations Tim!
October-December 2018... As we end another fantastic year we are very excited for the lab and its members. We successfully presented on "Manipulation of plant primary metabolism by a galling insect, grape phylloxera" at the Entomological Society of America in Vancouver, BC, November 11-14. The meeting was too short to see everyone, but the city and food were amazing.
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We welcomed Alex Borowsky to the lab as a rotation student. He is using co-expression networks to understand plant response to insects.
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We say goodbye to Wenhua Tian, our visiting PhD student from China Agricultural University in Beijing.
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We say congratulations to Tamera Taylor who earned TWO scholarships for her excellence in school. She was awarded an American Honda Award and Myron M Winslow scholarship through the UCR Honors Program! Congratulations Tamera!!
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July-August 2018... We successfully presented on "Competition for resources between desert mistletoe on mesquite" at the Ecological Society of America in New Orleans, LA, August 5-9. We also said goodbye to Rocky as she returned to school. Good luck this year Rocky!
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June 2018. Marakee "Rocky" Tilahun joined the lab as our summer REU student through the CEPCEB summer program. Rocky will be working with protein interaction assays to characterize effector function and screening variability in phenotypes among gall forming insects. Welcome Rocky!!
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December-March 2018. It has been a busy winter. We were successful in our travels and found several phylloxerids as we surveyed California trees. Surprisingly we found some in early March, well after historic collecting data indicated. We also welcomed a few new people to the lab:
Lindsey Agnew joined our team as a specialist, keeping us on task. Lindsey is also conducting preliminary data collection on plant parasites, as we investigate how plants co-opt other plants. Tamera Taylor joined the lab to work on effector validation and evolution as part of her undergraduate senior thesis. She earned a prestigious U-SPARC fellowship for Spring Quarter with the potential for a summer research stipend. Congratulations Tamera!! Ashil Koranne also joined the team to learn more about nutrient provisioning by plants and symbionts. Marigold also joined the lab and is anxious to learn more about phylloxerids, although she will start with orienting to her hands and feet. |
From left to right, Lindsey, Tamera, and Ashil pose for a greenhouse photo to make it on the website.
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November 2017. The lab presents at the International Aphid Genomics Symposium on our latest greatest efforts to understand effectors.
Discovery and validation of plant-manipulating effector proteins in grape phylloxera. Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Denver, Colorado
Discovery and validation of plant-manipulating effector proteins in grape phylloxera. Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of America, Denver, Colorado
September 2017. Timothy Dang joined the lab to learn more about our hops project and phylogenetics. Welcome Timothy! We are also prepping for another year of teaching, meetings, new students, and exciting new developments!
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July-August 2017. We returned to Arizona, Colorado, and Illinois, and stopped off in Mississippi and Minnesota. Most of the time we spent collecting phylloxerids but we did see some spectacular field sites.
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June 2017. Emmanuel Cuevas joined the lab as a summer REU student through the Center for Plant Biology NSF-CEPCEB REU PROGRAM IN NEXT GENERATION PLANT BIOLOGY (2015-2020). Emmanuel is combining real time phenotyping of one of our plant-insect model systems with bioinformatics-based inquiry into gene expression and structure. Welcome Emmanuel!
Our latest paper is live in BMC Evolutionary Biology: see it here or through the website
Our latest paper is live in BMC Evolutionary Biology: see it here or through the website
We also made it back to the Arnold Arboretum in Boston, MA, to collect phylloxerids from the Carya living collection. It rained a bit, but we found some amazing insects.
May 2017. Wenhua Tian joins the lab as a visiting PhD student! WELCOME Wenhua!! Wenhua is visiting us from the China Agricultural University on a fellowship. She is eager to join our bioinformatics group and to continue discovering insect effectors.
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April 2017. The blog post on our Journal of Ecology paper is live!
Also, check out these woollies from a collecting trip up North! |
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February - March 2017
Our first spring in the California desert saw a return of the rains, long absent for the past decade. As the carpets of wildflowers took form, we went out in search for new systems to study. We also setup a few trial experiments in the greenhouse to understand how evolutionary history explains inducible defenses, secondary chemistry, and pollinator success. More on these trials soon! We found out in March that we were granted a continuation of support for our ongoing investigation into how the woolly apple aphid colonizes and transforms apple roots and scions. We are grateful to the WTFRC for their continued support! Josh even managed to dig some up here in CA. Lastly, our latest article in the Journal of Ecology was selected as the Editor's Choice and they chose our photo for the cover! This will be posted near May. |
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January 2017. Above is a view looking from Box Springs Mountain Park down onto the UCR campus and neighboring communities. As prominently displayed, it is very sunny here!
