Everlyne Wosula
Graduate Student
E-mail: EWosula@agcenter.lsu.edu  

Major Professor: Dr. Christopher Clark

Education:

2004-2007: M.Sc. Horticulture. Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology- Kenya

1994-1998: B.Sc. Horticulture., Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology- Kenya

 Experience:

2000-2003: Kenya Tea Development Agency-Kenya as an extension field officer

2003-2004: Cereal Growers Association-Kenya as a field officer

2004-2007: International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) as a technical assistant in the Red spider mite project and Cowpea project

Area of research:

Sweet potato virus research: Sweet potato viruses are a threat to production worldwide, ranked second most important after the sweet potato weevil. My area of research focuses on studying the population dynamics of virus insect vectors mainly aphids and whiteflies in relation to occurrence of virus diseases in sweet potato fields in Louisiana. The information gathered will aid in development of better strategies for farmers to manage virus diseases by knowing when viruliferous vectors are likely to migrate into the sweet potato fields. My objectives include: To monitor insect population and virus occurrence in sweet potato fields using pan traps, sticky traps, trap plants and NCM-ELISA. Laboratory aphid transmission studies using various morning glory species as source plants and various aphid species to determine which aphid species are more efficient vectors and which morning glory species are the best inoculum sources. To study aphid feeding behavior using electrical penetration graph technique EPG to determine relation between feeding and virus acquisition and transmission. To quantify virus titer at various sweet potato field development stages using Quantitative Reverse transcriptase PCR to relate the rate of spread to quantity of virus titer available. To identify aphid species trapped in sweet potato fields with aim of providing information on virus aphid vector species diversity.

Future career

After completing my doctoral studies, I would like pursue post doctoral research areas virus vector diversity and behavior, and potential of spread of unknown viruses especially in African root crops; identification and characterization of unknown plant viruses using molecular techniques; influence of endosymbionts on vector fitness attributes and its impact on virus spread.

Recent publications, posters, oral presentations

E. N.WOSULA, M. KNAPP, and S. G. AGONG (2009) Resistance to Tetranychus evansi in Lycopersicon esculentum L. hirsutum var. glabratum hybrids Journal of Horticultural Science & Biotechnology 84:360–364

 E. N.WOSULA, M. KNAPP, and S. G. AGONG. Development of tomato hybrids resistant to tobacco spider mite at the 5^th Sustainable Horticultural Production in the Tropics Workshop held at Egerton University-Njoro from 22^nd-26^th November 2005.

 E. N.WOSULA, M. KNAPP, and S. G. AGONG. Resistance of two Lycopersicon species and their hybrids to tobacco spider mite at the 5^th Sustainable Horticultural Production in the Tropics Workshop held at Kenya Agricultural Research Institute-Mtwapa, Mombasa from 6^th – 9^th December 2006