UF Indian River REC Director and Colleague Win U.K.’s Royal Entomological Society’s J.O. Westwood Medal of Excellence

Dr. Ronald D. Cave is Professor of Entomology and Director for the UF/IFAS Indian River Research and Education Center
UF/IFAS image by Tyler Jones Pre-COVID

For their work to complete five volumes on New World faunal surveys and taxonomy of a scarab beetle subfamily, a University of Florida scientist and his colleague have won the U.K.’s Royal Entomological Society’s J.O. Westwood Medal of Excellence.

Ronald D. Cave is director of UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Indian River Research and Education Center (UF/IFAS IRREC) in Fort Pierce, Florida. Cave and his co-author, Brett C. Ratcliffe, professor and curator of insects at the University of Nebraska State Museum in Lincoln, are career colleagues who gather and compile data on the Western Hemispheres’ species of dynastine scarab beetles, also known as rhinoceros beetles and Hercules beetles, and sometimes identify species new to science.

Cave and Ratcliffe will be honored for their work, “Neotropical Dynastinae Monograph Series,” by members of the Royal Entomological Society at the next International Congress of Entomology, currently scheduled for July 2021 in Helsinki, Finland. In 2006, the Royal Entomological Society established the prestigious J.O. Westwood Medal for excellence in insect taxonomy aiming to encourage insect taxonomy, particularly revisionary work resulting in definitive monographs.

The first volume to appear, by Ratcliffe alone, addressed the fauna of Costa Rica and Panama. The book was followed by Cave and Ratcliffe’s work on the fauna of Honduras, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, then a textbook covering the fauna of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize, a monograph on the West Indian fauna, and finally a book on the scarab beetles of the U.S. and Canada. Each monograph is peer-reviewed and ranges from 300 to 666 pages. On the front and back of each volume are full-color images of beetles. For example, the elephant beetle, Megasoma elephas, is one of the species featured on the back of “The Dynastine Scarab Beetles of Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador,” due to some of its distinctive characteristics.

“In the five volumes, we treat 596 species, that is, we provide a description, diagnosis, distribution map and locality data, temporal activity data, natural history notes, and illustrations,” said Cave. “A total of 31 species are proposed as ‘new to science,’ meaning we described the species and named it, which is taxonomy.”

In a broad sense, Cave and Ratcliffe are Coleopterists, or beetle scientists. Together they worked to complete the monographs that were funded by three grants from the National Science Foundation.

Most dynastine scarab beetles are beneficial to natural ecosystems because the larvae decompose fallen logs and recycle forest nutrients and the adults are pollinators, while some are crop pests.

“Males of many species are spectacular animals due to their armature and very large size,” Cave said.

Cave and Ratcliffe will receive their own armature during the Helsinki award event, a specially struck silver-gilt medal inscribed with J.O. Westwood’s name and image.

In a formal nomination letter submitted to judges of the Royal Entomology Society, Cave and Ratcliffe were recognized for laying a foundation “for understanding ecology, evolution, and conservation of this poorly known group of invertebrates; to train a generation of taxonomists, and to connect the natural world with citizen scientists and academics alike.” Support letters were submitted by scientists who represent the Smithsonian Institution, a professor with the Instituto de Ecología in Mexico, an entomologist at the Insectarium de Montréal in Canada, and an official with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“I am honored to receive this award and am looking forward to presenting our future work to the international entomology community,” said Cave.

Since the Royal Entomological Society’s award selection was announced for Cave and Ratcliffe’s work, a sixth monograph is in print for the dynastine scarab beetles in Ecuador, which was supported by funding from the National Geographic Society. They also have a journal article in review that covers the fauna in Chile. Currently, the two entomologists are at work on the dynastine scarab beetle fauna in Paraguay.

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Posted: September 11, 2020


Category: Pests & Disease



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