News flash/update: Professor Louie Yang, a community ecologist in the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, will be the speaker at the Pacific Coast Entomological Society (PCES) meeting at 1 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 24 in Room 122 of Briggs Hall, University of California, Davis.
Yang, whose research encompasses monarchs and milkweed, will discuss “Why I Study Insect Ecology in the Field."
"I am working to develop a temporally explicit view of ecology that examines how ecological communities combine complex, coordinated and changing interactions over time," Lang says in his abstract. "I am particularly interested in the effects of climate change on species interactions, community responses to strong perturbation events, phenological cues and phenological shifts, and seasonal changes in the nature and outcomes of species interactions. I study several different organisms in a wide range of ecological communities, each of which contributes to a broader understanding of how species interactions change over time."
Yang, who serves as chair of the UC Davis Entomology Graduate Program, is one of the three co-founders and co-directors of the campuswide Research Scholars Program in Insect Biology, launched in 2011 to help students learn cutting-edge research through close mentoring relationships with faculty.
A native of Australia but who grew up in West Virginia, Yang joined the UC Davis faculty in 2009. He received the UC Davis Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, Undergraduate Student Level, in 2024. As an assistant professor, he received a 2013-2018 National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Award and was selected a Hellman Fellow in 2012. He won a Chancellor’s Teaching Fellow Award and the Atwood Colloquium Rising Star Award in Ecology, University of Toronto, both in 2015. He holds a bachelor's degree in ecology and evolution (1999) from Cornell University, and a doctorate in population biology (2006) from UC Davis.
Following his talk, the group will gather at the Bohart Museum of Entomology to learn about insects collected in Belize, said president Fran Keller, professor and chair of the Department of Biology at Folsom Lake College, and an entomology lecturer with UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology. A UC Davis alumna, Keller is also a research associate with the Bohart Museum of Entomology and the Jason Bond lab. She and her colleagues collected many of the Belize insects.
The PCES meeting also will be on Zoom. For registration and more information, contact Keller at kellerm@flc.losrios.edu
The Bohart Museum of Entomology, home of eight million insect specimens, is located in Room 1124 of the Academic Surrge Building, 455 Crocker Lane. Director is Professor Jason Bond, the Evert and Marion Schlinger Endowed Chair of Systematics, UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology, and the executive associate dean of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Resources.
Cover image: Professor Louie Yang of the UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology answering questions at a Bohart Museum of Entomology open house. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)