The Royal Entomological Society xxxx

By letter of nomination from the students Head of Department, to be accompanied by the relevant thesis, sent to the Registrar.

Entry Form

STUDENT AWARD ENTRY FORM

Prizewinners for the Student Essay Award 2006 are as follows:-:

FIRST PRIZE £250

Rebecca Nesbit - Rothamsted Research

"You are what you eat in the butterfly world"

RUNNER UP £150

Elizabeth Franklin - Universtiy of Plymouth

"Ants go through moving stress too"

THIRD PRIZE £100

Isobel Jones - University of Plymouth

"Gardeners of the Rainforest"

The President, Officers and Trustees congratulate the winners and offer thanks to all the entrants for a most interesting selection of essays.

Back to top

2008 WINNERS

AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST ENTOMOLGY

Leif Martin Schroeder. "Escape in space from enemies: a comparison between stands with and without enhanced densities of the spruce bark beetle." Vol 9, No.2, May 2007.

ECOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY

Jose M Gomez, Adela Gonzalez-Megias. "Long-term effects of ungulates on phytophagous insects." Vol 32, No 2, April 2007.

INSECT MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

C Claudianos, H Ranson, R M Johnson, S Biswas, M A Schuler, M R Berenbaum, R Feyereisen, JG Oakeshott. " A deficit of detoxification enzymes: pesticide sensitivity and environmental response in the honeybee." Vol 15, No 5, October 2006.

2007 WINNERS

MEDICAL AND VETERINARY ENTOMOLOGY

B.A. Mullens, K.-S. Lii, Y. Mao, J.A. Meyer, N.G. Peterson & C. E. Szijj, "Behavioural responses of dairy cattle to the stable fly, Stomoxys calcitrans, in an open field environment" Vol. 20, No.1, March 2006

PHYSIOLOGICAL ENTOMOLOGY

Kodrik, D., Socha, R., Syrova, Z. & Zemek, R. (2005) "The effect of constant darkness on the content of adipokinetic hormone, adipokinetic response and walking activity in macropterous females of Pyrrhocoris apterus (L.)" Physiological Entomology, 30, 248-255.

SYSTEMATIC ENTOMOLOGY

Kiselyova, Tatiana & Mchugh, Joseph V. (2006)

"A phylogenetic study of Dermestidae (Coleoptera) based on larval morphology"

Systematic Entomology 31 (3), 469-507.

Back to top

Lesley Goodman read Zoology at Girton College, Cambridge and completed her PhD at the University of Liverpool. She then joined Queen Mary College, London and devoted her professional life to encouraging the study of insect physiology and behaviour. Prior to her death in 1998 she set up the LJ Goodman Insect Physiology Research Trust with the aims of advancing the education of the public in the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of all aspects of insect physiology thereby promoting the control and conservation of insect species. The Trustees have now decided that the funding of the Lesley Goodman Award, through the Royal Entomological Society, would be a fitting tribute to her interests. The award will promote research into aspects of insect physiology and behaviour through the writing and printing or otherwise reproduced material such as periodicals, books, leaflets or other documents, films or electronically recorded material. It will also be used to hold or support exhibitions, meetings, lectures, classes, seminars and courses either alone or with others. The award is not necessarily envisaged as a prize for excellence, but, for example, could be taken as an encouragement for worthwhile projects including assistance with ongoing postgraduate research for which alternative funding might not be forthcoming.

The first winners were Dr Thomas Doring and Dr Lars Chittka of Queen Mary College who have received £1000.00 to support a series of public lectures entitled "The World Seen Through the Eyes of Insects".

Also, an award of £500.00 was granted to Ms Amy Mikhail a student at Aberdeen University to enable her to attend a special course for the advancement of her insect pysiology skills.

Back to top

Awards:-

2007

Professor Lincoln Brower (Lifetime Award)

Dr Martin Speight (Outstanding Achievement)

The award is named in honour of the leading 19th century British entomologist, John Obadiah Westwood (1805-1893).   Westwood was the inaugural holder of the Hope Chair of Entomology at the University of Oxford, when it was established by the Reverend F.W. Hope in 1863.   Westwood was one of the original group of founding members of the then Entomological Society of London in 1833 and served as President for three separate periods, 1851-52, 1872-73 and 1876-77.   In 1883 he was elected to the unique position of Honorary Life President of the Society.   He was a prolific author and published on most groups of insects and illustrated his own works, and those of many others, with his exquisite drawings and paintings.   Perhaps his most influential work was An Introduction to the Modern Classification of Insects published in two volumes in 1839, pp 1-462, and 1840, pp 1-587, by Longman, Orme, Brown, Green and Longmans, London.   As a major appendix to volume 2 he added his Synopsis of the Genera of British Insects, pp 1-158.    In this latter he first clearly established the concept of a type species for a genus, analogous to the type specimen for a species, and thus helped to provide a stable foundation for insect nomenclature.   It is particularly appropriate that our new award should be dedicated to this early pioneer of insect taxonomy.

Mike Claridge, Royal Entomological Society

Martin Hall, Natural History Museum

August, 2006

Dr Marianne Horak is awarded the first J.O. Westwood Medal for excellence in insect taxonomy for her
Olethreutine Moths of Australia

The Royal Entomological Society and the Entomology Department of the Natural History Museum are pleased to announce that the winner of the first J.O. Westwood Medal is Dr Marianne Horak, Curator of Lepidoptera at the Australian National Insect Collection in Canberra. She receives the award for her outstanding monograph entitled The Olethreutine Moths of Australia (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae), which is volume 10 of the landmark series Monographs on Australian Lepidoptera (CSIRO Publishing). The work benefited from contributions from Dr Furumi Komai. Dr Horak’s 522 page opus received plaudits from the distinguished international selection panel:

1. … a massive undertaking and meritorious achievement.
2. A monumental work… I would have no hesitation in recommending this work to students as a model of what a contemporary monograph should be: a high level of scholarship is evident throughout the work and the quality of every component of the monograph is absolutely exemplary.”
3. If I were a young lepidopterist, I don’t think I could ask for a better platform from which to begin my investigations.

Olethreutinae are a subfamily of the Tortricidae, a family of moths with larvae that include bud and fruit borers and leaf rollers. Olethreutines include species of economic importance, but this monograph celebrates their biodiversity. Although the title suggests that this volume is about Australian representatives of the group, many of the genera extend to Asia and beyond and so, therefore, does the importance of this work. Dr Horak has placed the Australian lineages in a broad geographical context. The work includes a framework phylogeny of the Olethreutinae and discussion of morphology, general biology, and diversity and distribution. A series of genus-level descriptions forms the body of the work, providing a beautifully illustrated coverage of the Australian fauna. Although the focus of the work is on genera, the constituent species are listed and Dr Horak has undertaken a great amount of study at this level.

Back to top

The winner for 2004/05 of this new Award is Dr Joseph Parker of M.R.C Cambridge for his work on size control mechanisms in fruit fly embryos.

2005/06 Dr James Logan for his studies of differential resonses of mosquitoes and biting midges to human host odours.

2006/07 Dr Timothy C Hawes for his studies of Plasticity in arthropod cryotypes - a polar perpective.