Meeting 1210 Minutes

Minutes from the 1210th Meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club

CEC President Sang il Kim called the 1210th meeting of the Cambridge Entomological Club to order at 7:39pm on Tuesday May 11th 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held on Zoom. Approx. 24 members and guests were in attendance.

New business: Sofia Prado-Irwin presented the 2020-2021 Treasurer’s report.

Since there were few expenses this year due to the pandemic, the Club had a surplus of $15.35

The slate of officers for 2021-2022 was approved:

President: Katherine Angier
Vice-president: Jessie Thuma
Secretary: Andrea Golden
Treasurer: Sylvie Finn
Executive Committee: Edward Plekavich, Jay Shetterly, Scott Smyers

Old business None

Our speaker was CEC President Sang il Kim, PhD student in the Farrell Lab. His talk was entitledTarget enrichment adds value to history: Phylogenomic studies of longhorned beetles using museum specimens

Sang’s introduction: “An accurate understanding of species diversity and their phylogenetic history is fundamental to studies of biodiversity and evolutionary ecology. A robust phylogeny of most beetle groups is difficult due to a practical limitation in obtaining freshly collected materials for all of the constituent species under investigation. With the advent of high-throughput sequencing technologies that have facilitated data collection from even fragmented DNA, historical museum specimens in entomological collections have become increasingly accessible for phylogenomic studies. In particular, target enrichment using PCR-generated custom probes offers a promising tool for generating molecular data from historical specimens in a cost-effective manner.”

Part 1: Sang introduced his talk with the beetle Callipogon relictus, Korean Natural Monument #218 and now endangered in Korea. Formerly widespread in Beringia, representatives of the genus are now found largely in S. America. Sang described the work leading to current understanding of the biogeography of the Callipogon genus, and possible future changes in its distribution.

Part 2 was Sang’s discussion of a comparative genomic study of the Anoplophora genus which includes the invasive Asian longhorned beetle, A. glabripennis and the role played by historic museum materials. Objectives included developing an enhanced phylogeny of the genus and understanding its climactic adaptations.

Respectfully submitted, Andrea Golden, CEC Secretary