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Penn State Chemical Ecology Course Taught by French Researcher - May 2005
May 4, 2005
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - A leading researcher from France recently taught a short but innovative course on chemical ecology at Penn State's Department of Entomology as part of an international student exchange program.
Called the Sustainable Crop Protection in Agriculture Program (SUSPROT), the program is designed to promote scientific cooperation and collaborative education between academic and professional communities in Europe and the United States. Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences is the lead US institution in a consortium of seven agricultural universities.
Chemical ecology is the study of chemical signals that are used by organisms to communicate and defend themselves and to find food and mates relative to resources and hazards. According to Dr. Frédéric Marion-Poll, Professor at INA P-G in France and instructor of the course, chemical ecology is a fast growing and rapidly evolving sub-discipline in environmental sciences.
During the chemical ecology course, eight Penn State graduate students and one student visiting from Belgium designed a Web site to provide information to other students about sustainable crop protection and plant-insect interactions. "Along with Gary Felton, head of the department of entomology at Penn State, I proposed that students collect data on insects egg laying (oviposition)," says Dr. Marion-Poll.
This behavior represents a crucial issue for field infestation and insect pest expansion because most adult insect pests are good fliers and can travel considerable distances from the point where they have emerged. "It also important to the survival of the insect species, because choices made by adult females will have a tremendous impact on the survival of their progeny," Dr. Marion-Poll explains. "There are documented situations where females oviposit on the wrong host plants, which can be fatal for their progeny. Understanding how such errors may occur could lead to new ways of protecting our crops."
During the course, the students gathered and summarized the most relevant references on oviposition and learned how to present the information in a logical format on a Web site. At the end of the two-week course, the students were able to present a Web site that was almost complete. "Given the amount of time they had to complete the project, this is a remarkable achievement. The Web site, which can be found at http://quasimodo.versailles.inra.fr/inapg/SUSPROT/ovipos, is full of information that can't be found anywhere else because of the chosen approach," Dr. Marion-Poll reports.
Jennifer Dean, a graduate student in entomology at Penn State with a concentration in chemical ecology, says the course was a unique opportunity to learn more about the subject from the perspective of a scientist from another country. "We learned a great deal about chemical ecology in a short amount of time and also obtained valuable computer skills in constructing a useful Web site," she says. "Also, I would like to take part in the SUSPROT student exchange program in the future, so this was a good way to get a better idea of what the program is about," she explains.
Casey Delphia, another graduate student in the department with a chemical ecology concentration, is also interested in the SUSPROT program and enjoyed working with the French professor. "Dr. Marion-Poll was a great teacher, and considering all that we accomplished in just two weeks, he did a terrific job," Delphia reports. "By establishing the Web site, I think we developed a good backbone for future classes to add information."
Dr. Marion-Poll says he enjoyed working with the Penn State students. "It was a pleasure to see them work on the project, read literature very actively, follow any suggestions I could make and propose workable solutions," he says. "We hope to continue this experience in following years, not only at Penn State but also with other partner universities, so that we can have a series of informative Web sites built by our students both in the United States and Europe."
Led by Penn State's Department of Entomology and the College of Agricultural Sciences' Office of International Programs, the SUSPROT program allows graduate and undergraduate students to spend time in one of four institutes in Western Europe to gain a global perspective on sustainable agriculture. Students or faculty interested in the program should contact at the Office of International programs at (814) 863-0249. For more information on the SUSPROT program at Penn State, see Web site http://www.cas.psu.edu/docs/international/FIPSEMain.htm.
Established in 1963, Penn State's Department of Entomology has grown into a well-balanced department providing undergraduate education, graduate student training and extension outreach education. Twenty faculty and more than thirty graduate students work on a variety of research topics, including chemical ecology. The department is part of Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. For more information, contact the department at (814) 865-1895 or visit the department's Web site at http://www.ento.psu.edu/.