Bee populations collapsing worldwide

"Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States" 

~ Reuters news story about the research article "Patterns of widespread decline in North American bumble bees"











Colony Collapse Disorder + Bee pathology

• Asian apiculture: proceedings of the First International Conference on the Asian Honey Bees and Bee Mites (1993)
• Disappearing disease: a comparison of seven different stocks of the honey bee (Apis mellifera) (1984)
• Fruitless fall: the collapse of the honey bee and the coming agricultural crisis (2008)
• Hearing to review the status of pollinator health including colony collapse disorder: hearing before the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives (2009)
• Honey bees: colony collapse disorder and pollinator role in ecosystems (2009)
• Morphology, evolution, and host associations of bee-associated mites of the family Chaetodactylidae (Acari:Astigmata): with a monographic revision of North American taxa (2008) 
• Nosema disease: its control in honey bee colonies (1978)
• "Pesticides and Honey Bee Colony Collapse Disorder" in The IPM Practitioner (September/October 2008)
• "Pesticides indicted in bee deaths" in The best American science writing (2010)
• Review colony collapse disorder in honey bee colonies across the United States: hearing before the Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture of the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives (2007)
• USDA: CCD Action Plan (2007)
• USDA: CCD Questions and Answers (2008)
• A World without bees (2009)

Bees + Beekeeping

• La Africanización de colonias manejadas de Apis mellifera L. en el Perú (2009)
• Asian honey bees: biology, conservation, and human interactions (2006)
• Bee (2006)
• Bee pollination in agricultural ecosystems (2008)
• Bees in America: how the honey bee shaped a nation (2006)
• The Bees of the world (2007)
• Bees, wasps, and ants: the indispensable role of Hymenoptera in gardens (2010)
• Bumblebees: behaviour, ecology, and conservation (2010)
• The Buzz about bees: biology of a superorganism (2008)
• Honeybee democracy (2010)
• The incomparable honeybee & the economics of pollination (2009)
• Natural beekeeping: organic approaches to modern apiculture (2007)
• Plan bee: everything you ever wanted to know about the hardest-working creatures on the planet (2009)
• The Quest for the perfect hive: a history of innovation in bee culture (2010)
• A Short history of the honey bee: humans, flowers, and bees in the eternal chase for honey (2009)

Also of interest...

• Animal architects: building and the evolution of intelligence (2007)
• Bee-inspired protocol engineering: from nature to networks (2009)
• Cognitive ecology II (2009)
• Debugging the link between social theory and social insects (2008)
• Ecology of social evolution (2008)
• Food exploitation by social insects: ecological, behavioral, and theoretical approaches (2009)
• Genome mapping and genomics in arthropods (2008)
• Insect hydrocarbons: biology, biochemistry, and chemical ecology (2010)
• Organization of insect societies: from genome to sociocomplexity (2009)
• The Philosophy of animal minds (2009)
• The Smartest animals on the planet (2009)
• The Superorganism: the beauty, elegance, and strangeness of insect societies (2009)

Andrew Bent honored by Am. Phytopathological Society

Dr. Andrew F. Bent, a faculty member in the UW-Madison department of Plant Pathology, is the 2009 winner of the Noel Keen Award for Research Excellence in Molecular Plant Pathology from the American Phytopathological Society.

This award recognizes contributions to "the understanding of molecular aspects of host-pathogen interactions, plant pathogens or plant-associated microbes, or molecular biology of disease development or defense mechanisms."

Dr. Bent's current research is focused on:

• Leucine-rich repeat (LRR) structure/function, and plant detection of bacterial flagellin
• Study and manipulation of disease resistance in soybean
• Previously unidentified biochemical responses of plants to pathogen infection

Recent publications:

Adams-Phillips. L., J. Wan, X. Tan, F.M. Dunning, B.C. Meyers, R.W. Michelmore & A.F. Bent. 2008. Discovery of ADP-ribosylation and other plant defense pathway elements through expression profiling of four different Arabidopsis-Pseudomonas R/avr interactions. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 21(5): 646-657.

Bent, A. & D. Mackey. 2007. Elicitors, effectors and R genes: The new paradigm and a lifetime supply of questions. Annual Review of Phytopathology 45: 399-436.

Bent, A.F. 2006. Arabidopsis thaliana floral dip transformation method. In: Agrobacterium Protocols (K. Wang, Ed.). Totowa, NJ: Humana Press. Methods in Molecular Biology 343: 87-103.

Briggs, A.G., L.C. Adams-Phillips, A.F. Bent. 2009. Poly(ADP-ribosyl)ation and host-pathogen interactions [Meeting abstract]. Phytopathology 99(6): S16.

Dunning, F.M., W. Sun, K.L. Jansen, L. Helft & A.F. Bent. 2007. Identification and mutational analysis of Arabidopsis FLS2 Leucine-Rich Repeat domain residues that contribute to flagellin perception. Plant Cell 19(10): 3297-3313.

Bent, A.F., T.K. Hoffman, J.S. Schmidt, G.L. Hartman, D.D. Hoffman, X. Ping & M.L. Tucker. 2006. Disease- and performance-related traits of ethylene-insensitive soybean. Crop Science 43: 893-901.

Genger, R.K., G.I. Jurkowski, J.M. McDowell, H. Lu, H.W. Jung, J.T. Greenberg and A.F. Bent. 2008. Signaling pathways that regulate the enhanced disease resistance of Arabidopsis "defense, no death" mutants. Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions 21(10): 1285-1296.

MacGuidwin, A.E., A.F. Bent, D.I. Rouse. 2006. Active learning in "Plants, Parasites, and People" [Meeting abstract]. Phytopathology 96(6): S159-S160.

Suarez-Rodriguez M.C., L. Adams-Phillips, Y. Liu, H. Wang, S.H. Su, P.J. Jester, S. Zhang, A.F. Bent & P.J. Krysan. 2007. MEKK1 is required for flg22-induced MPK4 activation in Arabidopsis plants. Plant Physiology 143(2): 661-669.

Sun, W., F.M. Dunning, C. Pfund, R. Weingarten & A.F. Bent. 2006. Within-species flagellin polymorphism in Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris and its impact on elicitation of Arabidopsis FLS2-dependent defenses. Plant Cell 18: 764-779.

Tan, X.P., B.C. Meyers, A. Kozik, M. Al West, M. Morgante, D.A. St. Clair, A.F. Bent, R.W. Michelmore. 2007. Global expression analysis of nucleotide binding site-leucine rich repeat-encoding and related genes in Arabidopsis. BMC Plant Biology 7(56).

Blight affecting tomatoes and potatoes

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UPDATE August 5, 2009: The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade & Consumer Protection confirms that late blight on tomato has appeared in Dane and Rock counties, the first cases of the disease in the state in six years. Full article: LATE BLIGHT ALERT
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Gardeners are being warned to destroy any Solanaceae plants (tomato, potato, eggplant) suspected of suffering from "late blight" disease, especially those purchased from big box stores.

The disease, associated with the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840's, is caused by the Phytophthora infestans fungus. While not harmful to humans, it is extremely contagious and deadly to plants.

Books:

• Phytophthora infestans: The cause of late blight of potato
  
• Resistance to phytophthora infestans in the potato


• Diseases, pests and disorders of potatoes: a color handbook


• Potato health management
  
• Phytophthora: identifying species by morphology and DNA fingerprints


• Illustrated glossary of Phytophthora / Glossário ilustrado de Phytophthora: técnicas especiais para o estudo de oomicetos

Conference proceedings:

• Phytophthora: Symposium of the British Mycological Society, the British Society for Plant Pathology, and the Society of Irish Plant Pathologists held at Trinity College, Dublin, September 1989


• Proceedings of the IInd International Symposium on Tomato Diseases: Kusadasi -Turkey, October 8-12, 2007
• Proceedings of the IIIrd International Late Blight Conference: Beijing, China, April 3-6, 2008

Video:

• Late blight and the Irish potato famine

UW-Madison dissertations & theses:

• Biological properties of Phytophthora infestans isolates from Wisconsin
• Characterization of RB and identification of additional genes involved in RB-mediated potato late blight resistance
  
• Genetic analysis of R9 conditioning late-blight resistance in potato (Solanum tuberosum L.)


• Late blight resistance linkages in a novel cross of the wild potato species Solanum paucissectum (series Piurana)
  
• Characterization of late blight resistance and unilateral incompatibility in diploid (1EBN) solanum species
  
• Characterization of late blight resistance and unilateral incompatibility in diploid (1EBN) solanum species

UW-Madison patent:

• Late Blight Resistance Gene from Wild Potato

UW Extension Report:

• Control Late Blight of Potatoes and Tomatoes (1963)

More information:

• Plant Pathology Research Guide
• Tomato Fruit Disorders (UW Extension)
• Tomato Diseases Powerpoint (UW Extension)
• Potato Diseases Powerpoint (UW Extension)
• Plant disease hits eastern US veggies early, hard (Associated Press)

Videos on Diseases with Insect Vectors

"Kill or Cure" is a series of 25-minute films on diseases faced by people living in developing nations, some of which have insect vectors. Subjects include:

• Malaria (mosquito)
  
• River blindness (black fly)
  
• Kala Anzar / Visceral Lieshmaniasis (sand fly)
• Chagas (kissing bug)
• Dengue fever (mosquito)
• Encephalitis (mosquito)
• Trachoma (flies)
  

Rockhopper.tv distributes these documentaries, and provides free streaming online access.

[Photo by James Jordan. License: Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic. http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjordan/2612506038]