Weekly Update (August 24, 2016; Wk 17) - Meet Dr. Tyler Wist

Dr. Tyler Wist spent his early insect years killing mosquitoes before studying pollinators in Echinacea crops for his M.Sc. with Dr. Art Davis at the University of Saskatchewan. A Ph.D. from the University of Alberta with Dr. Maya Evenden taught him the unseen world of insect chemical ecology, and invasion dynamics and the parasitoid complex of a recently introduced lepidopteran pest, the ash leaf coneroller. Drs. Chrystel Olivier and Owen Olfert brought him in on an NSERC Visiting Fellowship on the cereal aphid project and then had him chasing leafhoppers in cereal and canola crops.  Tyler is the current President of the Entomological Society of Saskatchewan and has begun a research scientist position at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Research and Development Centre in Saskatoon as a Field Crop Entomologist on January 25th 2016.

Tyler is working on developing a dynamic action threshold for cereal aphids that incorporates the predatory pressure of natural enemies, determining the economic threshold and effect of landscapes on flea beetles in newer, hybrid canola varieties, and tracking aster leafhopper populations and aster yellows infection in canola and cereal crops.  He is also investigating new integrated pest management tools for wheat midge and chasing Lygus bugs in canola and aphids in pulse crops.

Tyler can be reached at Tyler.Wist@agr.gc.ca or 306.385.9379.