ENTOMOLOGY: the INSECT SCIENCE

compiled by Scott Schell

Entomology is an independent science with basic roots in biology. It is the study of insects and their relatives (mites and ticks), and their biology, ecology, and population suppression in relation to their environment and to other organisms such as humans.

Insects and their relatives comprise more than three-fourths of the species in the animal kingdom. They affect the lives of everyone and are our greatest competitors for food. Insects are responsible for the spread of many diseases of humans, animals, and plants.

However, most insects and their relatives are either beneficial or are not harmful to plants, animals, or humans. These include pollinators as well as predators of harmful insects. Many insects are used in physiological , ecological, medical, veterinary, biodiversity, and genetic research. Insects and their relatives are very important in forest, range, crop, and aquatic ecological processes.

Undergraduate Program

The department is equipped with laboratories, insect cultures, an insect museum, scientific equipment, greenhouses, and research farms and has research plots in all regions of Wyoming. Opportunities exist for all students to participate in ongoing research. Faculty research includes veterinary entomology, biocontrol of weeds, systematics, crop protection, grasshopper biology and control, aquatic insets, and insect ecology in Yellowstone National Park. These projects include both laboratory and field research.

The Department of Renewable Resources currently offers M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in entomology. A B.S. in Agroecology with an Entomology Option and minors in Insect Biology is are also available.

Entomology courses offered in this Dept. include:

• Biodiversity
• Insect Biology
• Pesticide Safety and Application
• Veterinary Entomology and Parasitology
• Insects Affecting Livestock
• Insect Anatomy and Physiology
• Classification of Insects
• Aquatic Entomology
• Insect-Plant Interactions
• Insect Evolution
• Medical Entomology

Graduate Program

The University of Wyoming Entomology graduate program has produced students that have won national recognition, including the 1997 Entomological Society of America (ESA) Snodgrass Memorial Research Award winner Joseph Fortier (Ph.D. 1997) and the 1993 ESA Comstock Award won by Charles Bomar (Ph.D. 1993). Entomology students at the University are working on projects that take them to the intermountain region of the western US (including Yellowstone National Park), and exotic regions such as Costa Rica and Siberia. Both MS and Ph. D. degrees in entomology are offered.

Also available on campus are the facilities of the USDA-ARS Arthropod-Borne Animal Diseases Research Laboratory. To learn more about those facilities and the scientists that work their visit their web site at: www.uwyo.edu/special/usda_ars

Our faculty specialize in many areas of entomology. Please contact the faculty member directly about openings, admission and assistantships via email or visit their homepages to learn more about their research. A listing and description of the courses available in Entomology is provided. Further information is also available in the University of Wyoming General Bulletin

E-mail us at: wingdsong.uwyo.edu

Careers

Entomology covers a wide range of specialties- some for those who enjoy laboratory research and others for those who enjoy travel and field work.

Possible employment:

• academics
• industry
• private consultant
• U.S. Department of Agriculture
• armed forces
• quarantine control
• overseas organizations

 

Department of Renewable Resources
College of Agriculture
University of Wyoming
1000 E. Univ. Ave.
Dept.  3354
Laramie, Wyoming 82071
(307) 766-3114
E-mail: renewableresources@uwyo.edu
 

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This site is maintained by Randy L. Anderson.