Vidi team excursion – catching butterflies and searching eggs
Successful excursion with nice weather and lots of cabbage whites flying around!
Some black mustard plants showed strong HR that killed the butterfly eggs (dessicated).
Vidi TTW Users committee progress meeting
In a nice informal room in the Impuls building we had a fruitful second UC progress meeting. Niccolo and me updated the participants on the progress, some failures but also promising first results. Lotte, being in the middle of her maternity leave, was able to come as well. With the gained feedback and summer season ahead we are hopefully approaching more successful months. The next meeting will be at Nunhems/ Bayer in November 2017.
Mini symposium on insect-microbe-plant interactions
Presentations and discussion
In a chique room (with a crappy screen) in Impuls building on the campus we had a nice meeting with several interesting presentations and fruitful discussions. 13 participants from WUR, NIOO and FU Berlin were present including our special guest Martin Kaltenpoth, coming from Mainz early in the morning. Georgios Valsamakis and Luis Paniagua came all the way from Berlin, Eddie Griese from Cologne. All three gave an update on their PhD project, as well as Niccolo Bassetti on the Vidi project. Antonio Cusumano talked about his Marie-Curie project on the 'Impact of third trophic-level symbionts on plant-mediated indirect interactions' and Ana Pineda gave an overview on her research on 'Soil microbes in a world of plant-insect interactions'.
EPS Seminar
Later in the afternoon, Martin gave a seminar at PSG on 'Microbial symbionts for pathogen defense in insects'. For a Friday afternoon quite many people came to listen to Martins' inspiring work on insect symbiosis. With some beers, nachos and pizza in "the Spot' at Orion we closed this nice day before going into the weekend.
First experiments started
Planting first Brassica rapa seedlings
Three weeks before the start of the experiments we were transferring the seedlings to pots.
Mating the butterflies to obtain egg-laying females
Is this a male or a female?
Egg-laying maschines
Female cabbage whites did a quick job by laying 3 single eggs on one leave within a minute.
Collecting leaf material for RNA extraction and qPCR analysis
Sampling leaf disks below and next to the egg.
BINGO project meeting Delemont
On 17-20 January 2017 we had a meeting with the whole Bingo European consortium, very well organized by CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International) in Delemont, Switzerland. We had fruitful and interesting days incl. a workshop, mid-term meeting with the EU project officer and expert, a network meeting with all PhD students presenting their first results, and nice relaxing moments like snowball fights and cheese fondue in a cottage! Read more about BINGO news here.
Visit of CABI institute
Project leader Bart Pannebakker presenting a project overview
Sunrise in Delemont
Winter in Delemont
Cheese fondue in a cosy cottage
Bingo team
Dutch Entomology day @Ede
We enjoyed a nice Entomology day (NEV) on Friday, 16 December in the Rehorst, Ede. Lots of interesting talks on insects and people to meet. Niccolo and Lotte from the Vidi team were present for the first time. Sophie had a nice poster on Trichogramma behavior and others from the BINGO team even gave a talk.
New generation entomologists: Former and current members from the lab of Entomology (WUR)
Poster of Sophie
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Recent Posts
- Dr. Bassetti, congrats – you made it! October 7, 2022
- New publication by Corne van der Linden in Biological Control March 31, 2022
- First thesis chapter published by Niccolo Bassetti in BMC Plant Biology! March 31, 2022
- Yes, finally, Eddie Griese obtained his PhD degree! October 6, 2021