New study maps risk areas for citrus greening

Orange juice is a breakfast staple, but the future availability of citrus products is threatened by the global spread of citrus greening disease, which prevents commercially viable fruit from forming.

A new study by an international research team — including UF medical geographer SADIE RYAN — identifies global regions most at risk of, and most resilient to, citrus greening.

“Translating these models into maps helps communicate our findings to citrus stakeholders, and creates a baseline for thinking about potential climate change impacts,” Ryan said. She holds joint positions with UF’s Emerging Pathogens Institute and the Department of Geography.

The disease has devastated Florida’s citrus industry and led to a nearly 75 percent decline in boxed orange production in 2018 — the lowest production level since World War II, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Jobs in the state’s citrus industry have declined by 59 percent in the past decade, allowing Brazil to emerge as the top global producer of orange juice and costing Florida an estimated $2 billion in economic impact.

Citrus greening is caused by a bacterium transmitted by the Asian citrus psyllid insect. Both the pathogen and insect have spread in recent years, devastating regions famous for high citrus production.

Affected fruits end up smaller than normal, with a blotchy green appearance, malformed lobes and low-quality juice. As citrus greening menaces growers worldwide, the citrus industry’s future may depend on identifying locations most resilient to production collapse.

A new paper* published in the Journal of Applied Ecology that Ryan co-authored with a research team investigates the temperature-driven comfort zone for citrus greening transmission.

Led by Rachel Taylor of the United Kingdom’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, the research team modeled how citrus greening transmission depends on temperature, and then mapped how this translates into areas where the disease could become established.

The model found that the successful infection of host plants can occur between 60.8˚F and 91.4˚F (16˚C to 33˚C), with peak transmission at around 77˚F (25˚C). The authors then mapped global suitability to show which months have temperature conditions that would place citrus groves at risk for infection.

This work provides critical information for citrus production and crop management moving forward. In areas known for high citrus production, preventing the establishment of the disease through increased surveillance and management may help prevent the devastating effects that citrus greening has had on other growers.

This is an excerpt from a story originally published by the Emerging Pathogens Institute. To read the full story, click here.

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With a mathematical time machine, UF geologist reconstructs what happened in the Earth’s interior 55 million years ago

Geologist ALESSANDRO FORTE is not shy about the ambitious nature of his recent research.

“In some sense, what we’re doing is almost an act of hubris,” he said. “We’re taking the laws of physics and reversing them.”

By that, Forte means that he and his collaborators are tracing the movement of heat backwards to see what the Earth’s interior looked like tens of millions of years ago. Using thermodynamic equations and present-day seismological data, the researchers create high-resolution, three-dimensional maps of ancient conditions deep below the Earth’s surface. Forte compared the result to a CAT scan, with geological features in place of bodily organs.

In a new study* led by Petar Glišović of Université du Québec à Montréal, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Forte reconstructed the phenomena occurring under the North Atlantic Ocean 55 million years ago that may have led to a period of rapid global warming.

During this period, known as the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), global temperatures are estimated to have increased by at least 5˚C, an escalation believed to be associated with a rise in greenhouse gases.

At the time, little permanent ice could exist on the Earth’s surface, and sea levels rose.

“The Earth went through essentially what I call a ‘fever,’” Forte said.

This era, though much hotter than today, interests many climate scientists as a possible warning of the conditions that could appear if humans continue to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Yet questions have remained about what caused the release of gases during the PETM — questions Forte and his team hope their new study will help resolve.

Many geologists suspect that as the North Atlantic Ocean widened 55 million years ago, volcanic activity pumped lava into hydrocarbon-rich rock, causing a rapid release of carbon dioxide and methane: “A greenhouse gas ‘burp,’” Forte called it.

With their maps, Forte and his team believe they have reconstructed sources of this volcanic activity: Two deeply-seated upwellings of hot rock underneath the earth’s surface. These “plumes,” the reconstructions show, reached all the way down to the boundary of the Earth’s mantle and core.

One of the plumes, then under Greenland and today under Iceland, has long been suspected to have played a role in the volcanic activity. But the importance of the second, found under the Azores — an archipelago about 850 miles west of Portugal — is a new discovery.

With the success of this work, Forte is eager to see what other parts of the Earth’s interior looked like 70 million years ago.

“We’ve taken on these difficult problems and produced these compelling images,” he said. “Now let’s start looking at what’s going on elsewhere.”

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New research helps us to better understand Zika

Zika may not dominate the news cycle like it did several years ago, but that doesn’t make it any less of a threat.

Biology chair and professor MARTA WAYNE, along with biology professor MICHAEL MIYAMOTO and collaborator Helen Piontkivska from Kent State University, authored a paper in BioEssays with a compelling hypothesis detailing how the Zika virus can lead to devastating consequences in the infected.

A virus primarily spread through the bite of an infected Aedes species mosquito, Zika can most prominently lead to a birth defect in the fetuses of pregnant women. This defect, known as microcephaly, causes the child to be born with a smaller head than expected and oftentimes developmental issues due to a smaller brain.

The research team explored how Zika induces neurological damage by essentially causing a person’s immune system to go haywire.

The team argues that the Zika virus infection leads to an immune response which includes dysregulation of the host’s ADAR enzymes (adenosine deaminases acting on RNA), altering the expression of key proteins for neuronal function in both infants and adults.

“ADAR is something that our bodies have to defend against viruses,” Wayne said. “But if it’s dysregulated, it also has other functions in the absence of virus, which includes things like making the correct edits to RNA in the brain. If those don’t get made, or too little or too much are made, you have problems.”

These problems could include the neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative pathologies of Zika and the often associated Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare disorder where the body’s immune system attacks the nerves. The syndrome has been found in higher numbers in countries that experienced Zika outbreaks.

This explanation points to possible new avenues of treatment for Zika and Guillain-Barré by turning off ADAR, and potentially for understanding a number of other neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease — pending testing.

The team didn’t expect to head down these paths when they set out to investigate Zika, but the work has now opened new areas to explore.

“(This study) highlights the value of basic research — how it’s a journey and how you don’t know where this journey will take you,” Miyamoto said. “You just don’t know where you’re going to end up.”

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Uwem Akpan is one of the newest members of the Creative Writing Program

Assistant Professor of English UWEM AKPAN exploded onto the American literary scene in 2005 when his short story “An Ex-Mas Feast” was first published in the debut-fiction issue of The New Yorker.

Set in the slums of Nairobi, the story is told from the viewpoint of a young boy who details the desperate living conditions of his family, focusing heavily on his sister — a pre-adolescent prostitute who works to pay off the family’s debt and provide school fees for her brother.

The piece kicks off his breakout 2008 short story collection, Say You’re One of Them, which consists of five stories, each set in a different African nation and told through the eyes of children, that reveal the worst of humanity — poverty, discrimination and genocide — while leaving the possibility for grace.

Akpan joined UF in the fall of 2018 and is one of the newest members of the Creative Writing faculty. The son of teachers, he grew up in the village of Ikot Akpan Eda in southern Nigeria. As he told Oprah Winfrey, who selected Say You’re One of Them for her book club in 2009, he discovered he had the talent to write fiction when he was 29.

Winfrey praised the book, calling it “one of the most powerful collections of short stories I believe I have ever read.”

Akpan studied philosophy and humanities at Creighton and Gonzaga universities and finished his theology degree at the Catholic University of East Africa in Kenya. He then graduated from the MFA program at the University of Michigan in 2006. Akpan has held visiting writer positions at the Loyola University Chicago’s Center for Catholic Intellectual Heritage, the New York Public Library’s Cullman Center, the University of Michigan’s Humanities Institute and the University of Nevada’s Black Mountain Institute.

“I am happy to be here,” Akpan said when asked about his move to UF. “I thank everyone for the hospitality they’ve extended to me since I arrived. And, oh, I love the Spanish moss. It’s everywhere!”

Say You’re One of Them received an overwhelming response for a first book and was reviewed in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Paris Review, among others. The collection also won the PEN Open Book Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize.

That’s a tough act to follow, but Akpan is a natural storyteller, with an amazing ear for dialect and a confident authorial voice.

“People keep asking me about my second book,” he said. “I’m not even sure where the setting will be — maybe Africa … maybe even here.”

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Fundraising event raises over $12 million

On February 26, 2019, the University of Florida raised more than $12.6 million during a daylong event, Stand Up and Holler: Gator Nation Giving Day.

Giving Day, which began at 12 a.m. EST and concluded at 11:59 p.m. PST, drew 11,535 gifts from individuals around the world, including gifts from all 50 states and the giving site visited by people in 73 countries. The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences received 520 gifts totaling over $670,000. By 5 p.m., UF had surpassed its initial goal of 5,000 gifts, and a new goal of
8,500 gifts was set. By 8:30 p.m. that goal was met, and an unofficial new one — 10,000 gifts — was established.

“The gifts we received will have a major impact on our college,” College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Dean David Richardson said. “Stand Up and Holler donors supported inspired programming, innovative research and experiential learning opportunities so that our students and faculty are fully empowered to pursue their passions.”

Driven mostly by email and social media, the campaign was named in recognition of the beloved Gator football game cheer made famous by George Edmondson Jr., better known to fans as “Mr. Two Bits,” who passed away in July 2019.

Edmondson’s iconic orange-and-blue striped necktie was used as a symbol to promote the campaign, with T-shirts emblazoned with ties and tie stickers handed out, and replicas as large as 30 feet long strategically placed throughout the Gainesville campus. Six campus events and 20 others in key regions across the country were also held Feb. 26 to further encourage participation.

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences received further support thanks to ROB KINCART ‘72, his wife Laurel and their family, who donated $100 for every gift made to the college, totaling an additional $52,000.

“My family was very excited to participate in the inaugural Stand Up and Holler: Gator Nation Giving Day,” Kincart said. “We are continuously inspired by the great work of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and are proud to support the college’s students, faculty and researchers in all their efforts.”

“We are so thankful for the generosity of donors like the Kincarts,” Dean Richardson said. “Their dedication to this college allows us to provide support for unique programs like Beyond120 so they can give our students the tools they need to succeed not only once they graduate from our college, but for the rest of their lives.”

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UF Oral History Program hosts West Point cadets for a crash course in racial equality

Gainesville was not supposed to be a stop on the 2019 West Point Civil Rights Staff Ride. That was before PAUL ORTIZ, an associate professor of history and director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program, got involved.

The Staff Ride steeps West Point cadets in the legacy of civil rights and racial issues through classes and a two-week tour of significant historical sites.

This year, the planned first stop was in Ocoee, Fla., where, on Election Day 1920, white mobs killed an estimated 30-35 African Americans and later drove the rest out of town for trying to cast their votes in the segregated South.

While preparing to lead the trip, Army Lt. Col. LaKeysia R. Harvin, a West Point assistant professor of law who is originally from Gainesville and received her juris doctor from UF, encountered an article Ortiz had written about the massacre. She reached out to him in search of contacts to host the group in Ocoee.

Ortiz, a third-generation military veteran, was eager to help. The idea of versing future officers in civil rights, inclusivity and equality resonated with him personally.

“I thought about my own military experience,” Ortiz said, “and I thought, ‘Wow, I would have loved to work with officers like that.’”

He not only connected Harvin with a civil rights leader and retired Army major in Ocoee, he offered to arrange a second stop for the cadets in Gainesville.

Engaging with the military is at the core of what the Oral History Program does. The program’s interviewers have talked to hundreds of former servicemen and women for its Veterans History Project.

“We’re not doing our job if we’re just talking to people on campus,” Ortiz said. “Part of our job is to be a bridge between the university and the broader community.”

Ortiz saw the cadets’ visit as a chance to use oral history to prepare future military officers to lead diverse groups while advancing ideals of democracy and equality.

“We want to ensure that people in the military understand the value of what they’re supposed to be upholding,” he said.

On their May 30 stop in Gainesville, the cadets attended a panel at the Wilhelmina Johnson Center featuring local activists and civil rights movement veterans, including UF religion professor Gwendolyn Zoharah Simmons and Vivian Filer, chair of the board of directors at the Gainesville Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center.

After a van tour that showed the cadets how Gainesville has changed over the years, the group had brunch at the Cotton Club. There, they continued their dialogue with the panelists about issues like gentrification and affordable housing.

The Ocoee and Gainesville visits, it seems, set a high standard for the rest of the Civil Rights Staff Ride.

“The good news is that these were two of the most engaging stops on our entire trip,” Harvin wrote in a thank-you note to Dean David Richardson. “The bad news is that it will be hard for other places to measure up to the hospitality, quality and professionalism we received in Ocoee and Gainesville.”

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