F I R S T SPOTLIGHT
Wasp-loving professor gets unique gift from inspired former student
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BY KAREN F ELD MAN
F SOMEONE NAMED A wasp after you, you might consider it stinging commentary on their feelings about you. But when Billy Gunnels found out that a former student had done just that, he was thrilled. “As a wildlife biologist, I cannot imagine a higher honor,” said the associate professor and director of the FGCU Office of Scholarly Innovation and Undergraduate Research. “This may not mean much to others, but it was simply the coolest thing anyone could have done for me. Seriously, it still gives me shivers.” Gunnels was drinking coffee and checking emails early on the Billy morning of Sept. 9 – his Gunnels 50th birthday – when he opened one from a former student, Zach Lahey (’10, Environmental Studies and Biology). “I am writing you to let you know that I intend to name a new species of parasitic wasp in your honor: Phoenoteleia gunnelsi, based on a single female specimen from Indonesia,” Lahey wrote. It was, Gunnels said, the perfect gift for a wasp-loving animal behaviorist. “I love wasps for a host of reasons,” he said. “They show some of the most creative life histories. The Cuban paper wasp, for example, can live in solitary conditions or as part of groups where they cooperate. Their larvae also feed the adults. The adults capture prey then feed it to the maggots. The maggots presumably digest then regurgitate a liquid diet the adults consume because the adults can’t eat solid food so they use the offspring as partial digestion tools.” Other wasps, such as parasitoids, help
control populations of unwanted insects, such as beetles that plague orange groves, without the use of pesticides. Pretty fascinating, huh? Well, it is to a biology professor who has been known to have his students act out bee behavior on the university’s Great Lawn, wax lyrical about Amazonian snakes and study the mating behavior of giraffes. Animals – large and small, those with wings, scales or fur – are endlessly fascinating to him and afford him no end of research projects that he shares with his students. Wasps, however, are among his favorites. It’s a passion that Lahey shares. Currently working on his doctoral degree at The Ohio State University, he said he’s been interested in all sorts of animals since he was young, but it was through a job that Gunnels helped him secure that he came upon his first parasitic wasp. He and Gunnels connected when he was an undergraduate taking an animal behavior class. “I talked to him after class and told him how cool the class was,” Lahey recalled. “We struck up a rapport and that led to him advising my senior project about arthropods on sabal palms on the FGCU campus.” That led to Lahey landing a job with the University of
A newly identified species of parasitic wasp, Phoenoteleia gunnelsi, named in honor of FGCU associate professor Billy Gunnels.
Florida’s nearby research center where he “realized students were getting their master’s doing what I’m doing. I credit him with getting the ball rolling on things. He instilled in me what it’s like to do science.” So, when Lahey discovered this wasp – one of many stored in the department’s collection awaiting further study – he thought “typically in this field you name a species after someone to honor them in appreciation.” The wasp – a female and the only one of her kind identified so far – has a long protruding horn on its mesosoma (the middle part of the body), which houses the wasps’ ovipositor, the organ through which it lays eggs. Parasitic wasps lay eggs in the bodies of other species, such as grasshoppers. The eggs hatch on the host and then consume it. Just think of the movie “Alien,” but in miniature. “It’s like a horror story. Insects provide the greatest story lines,” Gunnels said. Lahey does research on parasitic wasps from all over the world. “People collect animals in one place. If they know what it is, they pin it. If not, they send it to a biological museum,” he said. Insects often find their way to the museum at The Ohio State University. Researchers like Lahey then examine them and try to determine if they are members of a known species or if they might be one that’s not yet been identified, like Phoenoteleia gunnelsi. Lahey is the lead author of an article on the wasp that will appear in a special issue of the Journal of Hymenoptera Research this fall. Gunnels couldn’t be happier about his former student’s success or the fact that a rare wasp now bears his name. “Turning 50 is supposed to be a dark day,” he said. “There are only so many living things on the planet. For someone to think that my work deserves that memory, I couldn’t have been more honored or humbled.” n FGCU360.COM / FGCU360 MAGAZINE
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