The Strange Lab At ENTSOC 2024

This year’s Entomological Society of America National Branch Meeting was in Phoenix Arizona, and I can only imagine the celebration there was when the people learned the news. There must have been parades, speeches, people embracing in the street, a key to the city, and many other activities befitting the occasion. However, because the society picks locations years in advance, everybody seems to have gotten the excitement out of their system as it was a very quiet Sunday in downtown phoenix for day one of the conference. The strange lab brought a complement of four to the meeting, Dr. Morgan Christman and Dr. Jamie Strange had arrived early for a Saturday USDA NIFA meeting and native bee conservation workshop respectively, and graduate students Brooke & Dante arrived Saturday night. First up was Jamie, who gave a talk Sunday morning on how “Managed bumble bee colonies influence pathogen and parasite prevalence in bumble bee communities”, a presentation of Dr. Pinar Barkan’s work, who was unable to make it to the meeting this year. In the afternoon came Mo’s talk, “Invasion in the land of fire and ice: The impact of non-native plant-pollinator interactions on native bumble bees in Icelandic heathlands”.

Monday came the day of the student talks, and as is tradition everyone from Ohio State was scheduled on top of one another. Dante came up first, with his presentation of his summer research regarding “How can green infrastructure affect bumble bee colony health and success?”. After finishing up he quickly scuttled over to the next room, where Brooke had just begun her talk. Also focusing on her work over the summer, she presented “Would you like Mustard on that? Brassica juncea as a late season cover crop for bumble bees”. If you were wondering, bumblebees hate mustard pollen, and didn’t collect any. After that everyone returned to there respective sessions to see the rest of the student talks, and mostly dispersed for the day. The lab got together again for dinner, meeting up with Dr. John Koch’s lab as well before heading to the Ohio state mixer. Tuesday consisted of attending more talks & sessions, as well as catching up with old friends. The same can be said for Wednesday, with Mo taking the time to enjoy some local nature, before everyone began to trickle out and return to Columbus. We’re looking forward to heading back out west next year for the 2025 meeting in Portland!