I'm Back!

I am back at the OARDC after attending the Aphidophaga 11 conference in Perugia Italy. This conference was held in the Faculty of Agriculture, University of Perugia which is housed in St. Peter's Abbey. The setting was far from your typical conference, with presentations held in the Abbey and posters set up in an outdoor square.

The conference was an excellent opportunity to meet biological control researchers from across the U.S. and Europe. During the conference, I met Dr. Helen Roy and several members of her lab. Dr. Roy is an ecological entomologist who runs a diverse laboratory interested in many aspects of insect ecology and invasion dynamics. She also runs a lady beetle survey across the UK, http://www.ladybird-survey.org/, and has data on lady beetle populations for 30 years!

I also was able to catch up with my collaborator Dr. Audrey Grez, a professor at the Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile. Dr. Grez is studying biological control of aphids in alfalfa. She is also interested in interactions between native and exotic lady beetles, and the contributions of exotic lady beetles to native lady beetle decline. I will be working with Dr. Grez to measure the biological control service that lady beetles provide to alfalfa pest management beginning in 2013. I am really excited about the opportunity to travel to Chile to conduct experiments with her and her laboratory!