Daniel Wilczek: Second grade wonder turns to graduate school passion

This photo shows a young white male with short dark curly hair and a maroon polo shirt. It is an outdoors head-and-shoulder shot with grass and trees in the background. — Virginia Tech graduate student Daniel Wilczek studies the broad-headed bug, an important pest in the edamame industry. Photo courtesy of Daniel Wilczek.

The following story was written in November 2021 by Elisabeth Coffman in ENGL 4824: Science Writing as part of a collaboration between the English department and the Center for Communicating Science.

Few people can look back and mark a specific time that set the course for the rest of their lives. For Daniel Wilczek, that time was second grade. A periodical cicada outbreak swarmed his hometown of Arlington, Virginia, and ever since, Wilczek has been fascinated by bugs. That curiosity has led him through his undergraduate years and into his graduate research.

Why bugs?

Every insect holds something new, Wilczek explains: “There's so many different kinds. There are so many different adaptations they have. And it just makes it really, really interesting to see them because you never know what you're going to see next.”

The complexity and uniqueness of these small organisms has motivated Wilczek to research the effects of the broad-headed bug on edamame, the topic of his master’s degree project in Virginia Tech’s Department of Entomology.

This photo shows three soybean pods hanging from their stem and covered by five black bugs with long antennae. — Broad-headed bug adults feeding on edamame, or young soybeans. Photo courtesy of Daniel Wilczek.

Edamame is often called an “immature soybean,” meaning the beans are harvested before they grow into full soybeans. These legumes are an excellent source of fiber and minerals, and they can help reduce the risk of heart disease. They are delicious boiled and steamed and taste great with salt.

Edamame is not a plant native to North America. When U.S. farmers attempt to grow this bean, organisms native to North America influence it in ways that are different from when edamame is grown in its native environment. With his research, Wilczek hopes to shed more light on influences that negatively affect the growth of this plant in the United States. Specifically, he is studying the effects of the broad-headed bug on edamame. His goal is to help the growth of this plant be as successful as possible.

During his undergraduate studies, Wilczek met a student who was studying edamame when the broad-headed bug, an edamame pest, had a huge outbreak. The student recommended that Wilczek continue researching this pest for his graduate research. He has two foci: to understand this bug for pest control purposes and to further scientific knowledge about it.

To conduct his research, Wilczek travels to different edamame farms, identifies bugs until he finds the species of specific interest to him, and then conducts his experiments. Once Wilczek knows he has found the broad-headed bug, he uses the long-accepted and effective method of caging the plant to study independently the bug’s effect on edamame. Caging is the technique of creating an enclosure around the edamame so that other animals or bugs cannot interfere in the study. Wilczek wants to make sure that other factors are not influencing the plant apart from the bug, and caging helps him control the environment of the experiment.

This photo shows a field of soybeans with mountains in the background. About a dozen small wire mesh cages are visible in the field, covering a few plants. — As part of Wilczek's research, broad-headed bugs are caged on soybean plants to determine their damage to the edamame crop. Photo courtesy of Daniel Wilczek.

To help with the identification process, Wilczek uses an app called iNaturalist, to which users can upload pictures from nature and the app-using community helps identify specimens. iNaturalist provides him with occurrence information from all over the state and is helping him build a distribution map of the species of broad-headed bugs that occur in Virginia.

Wilczek’s cage experiment results showed that the broad-headed bug leaves dark spots on edamame that make the young soybean unappealing to consumers. At this point, edamame is mostly imported from abroad. But Wilczek hopes his research can help make this plant more appealing to farmers here in the United States, cut down costs, and raise profits. Understanding this North American pest can increase the chances for successful edamame plants in the future. While his work is a small piece of the puzzle, Wilczek is hoping his research will do its part in lessening edamame’s carbon footprint: the less this plant is imported and the more consumer demand can be met with “home-grown” edamame, the fewer carbon emissions will be released into the environment from travel.

This photo shows an enclosure made of PVC piping covered with a fine mesh or netting and covering one soybean plant in a field of soybeans. The enclosure is about twice as tall as the plant. — Isolating a soybean plant and the broad-headed bugs feeding on it helps Wilczek understand the effects of the bug. Photo courtesy of Daniel Wilczek.

For Wilczek, the question of “What is your graduate research?” and “What is your passion?” are one and the same. In second grade, he found his wonder. As a graduate student, he has found his purpose. And he is making a difference, one bug at a time.