June 4, 2008
 |
| Nate Hardy, recipient of the 2008 Kinsella Memorial Prize, with major professor Penny Gullan. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey) |
DAVIS—Nathaniel "Nate" Hardy, a 2004-08 doctoral student in entomology at the University of California, Davis, has received the 2008 Kinsella Memorial Prize, memorializing former dean John Kinsella (1938-1993) of the UC Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
Hardy, who studies the diversity and evolution of scale insects, received $3000 and a plaque. The annual award is given to an outstanding graduate student advised by a College of Ag faculty member. Applicants are judged on the quality and originality of their work, multidisciplinary impact, and importance of their research to the college's mission: to serve agriculture, the environment, and human health and development.
The Entomology Graduate Program nominated him for the award. Entomologist Penny Gullan, his major professor, presented the plaque to Hardy at a seminar on Wednesday, June 4 at Briggs Hall.
Hardy completed his dissertation in February and is working as a postdoctoral researcher for Peter Cranston in the Gullan and Cranston lab through September.
"Nate Hardy is an outstanding young scientist who has produced quality dissertation research, which he has published in peer-reviewed journals and which has importance to other fields of insect science and to California agriculture," Gullan said.
Hardy's research interests center on the diversity and evolution of scale insects, especially felt scales (Eriococcidae) and mealybugs (Pseudoccoccidae). Mealybugs are major agricultural pests that feed on citrus, grapes, greenhouse plants and other agricultural crops. Hardy's research led to new classifications for several groups of scale insects.
"Scale insects are of special importance to agriculture due to their pest status and notoriety as quarantine intercepts," said Gullan, who noted that scale insects "are difficult to study and identify because their small size requires specimens be mounted on glass slides for examination under a compound microscope."
"Scale insect identification tools are important to California agriculture because these insects frequently are introduced accidentally on imported plants," Gullan said. Hardy's taxonomic monographs and his DNA datasets "will assist people employed in insect pest diagnostics, for example, in plant quarantine."
Gullan described Hardy as "an extraordinary graduate student in every respect with a breadth of talent, and he's innovative and productive in research."
"Nate has a wonderful ability to think critically and solve problems and was so extraordinarily competent in all of his research work that he set a new standard for what can be expected from entomology graduate students," she said.
For his dissertation, Hardy investigated a number of issues in scale insect systematics. Among them:
- He assessed the value of previously untested genes for resolving relationships among insects, and then used two of these genetic markers in some of his own research.
- He applied nucleotide sequence data from a range of genes together with morphological data from two or more insect life stages to infer the evolutionary history of mealybugs (family Pseudococcidae) and of two groups of felt scales (Eriococcidae).
- His hypothesis for the evolution of mealybugs led to the recognition of two subfamilies and four tribes within the Pseudococcidae, and he was able to diagnose each subfamily morphologically and provide a list of genera for each (69 genera in the Phenacoccinae and 201 genera in the Pseudococcinae).
- His phylogenetic research on the Eriococcidae led to a new classification for the felt scales that feed on southern beech trees (Nothofagus species) and for a large group of felt scales that feeds on Eucalyptus trees.
- He published informatively illustrated taxonomic descriptions and identification guides for these felt scale insects.
Over the past two years, Hardy has published or had accepted for publication nine papers in peer-reviewed journals, with more pending. These works include two papers published in Systematic Entomology, the top journal in the field on insect systematics.
Initially from Philadelphia, but a resident of Davis since 2002, Hardy received a bachelor's degree in entomology, with honors, from Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. in 2002.
The Entomological Society of America (ESA) awarded Hardy "The President's Prize" for his oral presentation at the ESA meeting last December in San Diego. Hardy, speaking on "A New Mealybug Subfamily Classification Based on Integrated Morphological and DNA Sequence Data," discussed his novel research on mealybug phylogeny and classification.
Future plans? "I hope to continue describing scale insect diversity and contribute to the assembly of the scale-insect tree of life," Hardy said.
Back to News
--Kathy Keatley Garvey
Communications specialist
UC Davis Department of Entomology
(530) 754-6894
