I'm Jonathan Lundgren at the USDA ARS facility, North Central Agricultural Research Laboratory in Brookings South Dakota. So, I am a predator ecologist but I study predators of some of the major insect pests of the northern Great Plains. In our region corn rootworms, Diabrotica species, and soybean aphids our of paramount concern for farmers and stakeholders of our region. It just so happens that both of these pests are fed upon by a wide diversity of different predators and through our research we are starting to reveal how these insects are able to avoid predation and just how much predation is occurring within the landscape. It's substantial, there's a lot of predator power out there. One of the major focus of my research program has been trying to figure out what insects eat--specifically what predators eat. Most scientists that study biological control have focused on the fact that predators and natural enemies are eating crop pests. And this is a very important aspect. Predatory insects also appreciate a non-prey food in their diet as well. Unraveling these complex food webs and the importance of some of these non-prey resources for predators has really enlightened our ability to conserve natural enemies within cropland and led to me being invited to write the book Relationships of Natural Enemies and Non-prey Foods. Everybody knows about insects. Everybody is a little bit creeped out and a little bit fascinated by insects but it knows very little about them. A lot of people believe the only good bug is a dead bug. That is not the goal of my research project. The goal of my research is really to focus on what are some of the characteristics of natural systems that we can then put back into our agroecosystems to reap the benefits with minimal reliance on chemical pesticides. We need to understand how these species are interacting and a critical aspect to these interactions is understanding and knowing what it is that insects are eating under field conditions. This isn't always an easy question to answer so I've had to develop new tools and specifically what I've developed in order to figure out who is eating crop pests and weed seeds is molecular techniques. So what we are able to do is we're able to cut open some of our beneficial insects. We tear out their stomachs and we look inside for pest specific DNA sequences that indicate under field conditions what these predators have actually been consuming. We've done the same thing for weed seeds to figure out what natural enemies of weed seeds are shaping the dispersion and density of weeds within cropland. These techniques have allowed us to start to develop conservation programs that can to be used to conserve the beneficial species that are affecting some of our key crop pests within the Great Plains. I study the friendly insects that are out in crop fields the ones that are eating some of the pests. And so the insects that I work with are primarily predators both of insect pests and of weed seeds. Specifically I work with things like lady beetles with spiders with pirate bugs with crickets with ground beetles and with other of these friendly insects that live both in the soil and on the plants. When I arrived with ARS six years ago I was working with, like so many insect ecologists, with the insects that were living in the plant canopy with the insects that were easily collected and the ones that we could see very clearly what they were doing out there. Over time I shifted my research program because some of the main pests that we experience in cropland are actually living in the soil. So things like the corn root worms and the bean leaf beetle are important pests. The corn rootworm is probably the biggest pest of agriculture in the world. But we knew very little about what is eating these pests underneath the soil so much of my research now focuses on the insects that are living within the soil and interacting with some of these immature stages of our key pests of agriculture down there. And it's been an amazing experience. Agriculture is changing at a staggering rate and many people, farmers included, are beginning to realize that they're not going to be able to raise crops the way that they always have. Change is coming and ARS is uniquely situated to be able to provide tools for farmers that farmers can use to be productive and remain leaders within the world and food production. When I arrived in South Dakota six years ago I would get up in front of producer groups and I would explain to them the importance of biodiversity and reducing disturbance on their farming operations and at the end of my forty-five minute presentation the only people that would be listening were the crickets in the back of the room and you would hear them chirping that's about the only questions that I got. Over time though farmers began to listen and now when I give the same presentation after six years and backing it up with research and with public education and outreach I have developed a core group of farmers that are really supporting and using some of the research that I'm doing out here. Getting the Rothbart award was a tremendous honor and a very humbling experience. The quality of scientists especially some of these young scientists within the agency is really profound we're working in a fantastic agency in that regard and so to be nominated and elected the top of the top was really a tremendous experience and many thanks to ARS for bestowing this honor on me.