September WEES with Mitchel Bourne

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We would like to invite you to attend June’s Wageningen Evolution & Ecology Seminar (WEES) and workshop in-person! The seminar will take place on Thursday 22th September, 16.00-17.00 in C2035 in Orion. This will be followed by drinks at The Spot and the opportunity to have dinner (at own cost) with the speaker (sign up for dinner with Mitchel Bourne – mitchel.bourne@wur.nl).

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The associated workshop will be from 14.00-15.00 in in Orion. The workshop gives attendees the opportunity to meet the seminar’s speaker and have a discussion based on recent publications. The workshops are a good way to get acquainted with hot topics in science and to learn how to discuss these topics with leading scientists in the field. Furthermore, BSc and MSc students can get 1 ECTS for attending 2 workshops. Registration is required for this workshop and you can sign up by emailing Mitchel Bourne (mitchel.bourne@wur.nl).

 This will be a great event so please forward this information to anyone who could be interested!
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 Seminar: Potential of microbial volatiles to enhance biological control of pest insects (16.00h in C2035, Orion) 

Prof. Dr. Bart Lievens,

Full professor,

KU Leuven University

 Biological control using natural enemies such as predatory insects and parasitoids has become an important alternative way of pest management. However, biocontrol efficacy can be seriously hampered by dispersal of natural enemies away from the crop and/or the presence of hyperparasitoids in the crop. To improve biological pest control, insect behaviour can be manipulated by using attractants or deterrents to lure parasitoids in the crop or keep harmful insects away. While most research so far has focused on cues derived from plants and other insects, there is mounting evidence that insects also respond to volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by microorganisms. In this talk, I will discuss the potential of microbial volatiles to enhance biological pest control. Recent results from both laboratory assays and greenhouse experiments will be presented for the model food web consisting of sweet pepper, aphids, primary parasitoids and hyperparasitoids. Exploitation of these results may lead to novel semiochemical-based strategies to improve biological aphid control.

 

Workshop: Studying microbiomes using high-throughput sequencing: opportunities, pitfalls and challenges (14.00h in Orion)

Advances in molecular methods and next-generation sequencing (NGS) have ushered in new opportunities to characterize microbial communities in great detail. Yet, due to the high sensitivity of these methods, it is of utmost importance to include appropriate positive (mock community) and negative controls (DNA extraction and PCR controls) to decontaminate your dataset and interpret the results is a correct way. By using examples from our ongoing research on beer, plant and insect microbiomes, we will not only discuss the opportunities of NGS-based microbial community profiling, but also potential pit-falls and challenges. In addition, please feel free to ask whatever questions you have regarding microbiome analyses, and plant-microbe-insect interactions, and we’ll discuss it. As a preparation for the workshop, you could read one of the following papers:

 Vargas et al. (2021). Bacterial community dynamics of tomato hydroponic greenhouses infested with hairy root disease. FEMS Microbiology Ecology, 97 (12), doi: 10.1093/femsec/fiab153.
Gloder et al. (2021). Parasitism by endoparasitoid wasps alters the internal but not the external microbiome in host caterpillars. Animal Microbiome, 3 (1), https://doi.org/10.1186/s42523-021-00135-y 
Bossaert et al. (2020). Description of the temporal dynamics in microbial community composition and beer chemistry in sour beer production via barrel ageing of finished beers. International Journal Of Food Microbiology, 339, Art.No. 109030. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijfoodmicro.2020.109030

WEES background  
WEES is an initiative of PhD students and postdocs at Wageningen University to organize a continuing series of stimulating seminars on contemporary topics in evolution and ecology. We aim to bring together different groups at Wageningen University using a variety of systems, but with a common interest in evolutionary and ecological questions. For this series we invite researchers from all over the world who have leading roles in their field. After the talk there will be drinks for an informal discussion. WEES is funded by graduate schools PE&RC, WIMEK, EPS, VLAG and WIAS.    

For more information please visit: www.weeswageningen.nl 

Interested in joining the WEES committee and organizing seminars yourself?
WEES is looking for new members! We aim for a broad and diverse range in topics and would like to welcome new members to help and include topics not represented yet. If you are curious, send an email to weeswageningen@gmail.com and join one of our meetings.