ENTOMOLOGY TODAY - During his Ph.D. work at the University of California, Riverside, Jake Cecala, Ph.D., conducted a project looking at the effects of irrigation and pesticide use in ornamental plants on solitary bee reproduction. The project comprised 20 mesh flight cages set up in a field at the campus agricultural station. Each cage had 30 potted plants and an automated irrigation setup, and he filled each cage with alfalfa leafcutting bees.
Jacob “Jake” Cecala, Ph.D., is currently a U.S. Department of Agriculture-National Institute of Food and Agriculture postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Entomology and Nematology at the University of California, Davis, where he is studying how insecticides and water availability affect floral microbial communities and pollination. Jake received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Riverside (UCR), in 2021, conducting research on wild bees in commercial plant nurseries with Erin Rankin, Ph.D. He also received an M.S. in biological sciences and a B.S. in biology, both from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he researched bee pollination of watermelon crops with Joan Leong, Ph.D.