NEVBD Summer Blog - Abby Golembiewski

  Black Fly:  This week, I did not do too much black fly work, but I was able to go to two small creeks to take samples from. However, at one of those sites we were unable to find any black fly (which is technically a good thing!). The other site was successful, so we added one more sample to the small creek collection. Below is a picture!! A lot of these black fly small creek spots are so pretty! Mosquitoes:  On the bioassay side of things this week, I first collected the 96 hour data from last Thursday. There were some interesting results, and when the Probit analysis was run, it said that our LD50 was 0.08 microliters/Liter. This is similar to the results we received last time (0.05 microliters/Liter). We then decided to start our first outdoor trial and scaled up to a “mesocosm” (5 L of larval water rather than 250 mL). We put 5 mL of 1 microliter/Liter solution into it. I took note that most of the larvae were dead within the first 24 hours, and they were all dead after 72 hours

  Black Fly This Week:  I had an exciting week working with black flies! I collected my first independent samples from three different sites in order to determine if we needed to treat the river (spoiler alert: we did). I am still working on correctly identifying black flies larvae in comparison to other species, but I was able to identify black flies at 2 of the 3 sites I went to. I sorted through the samples afterwards. I saw what they looked like under the microscope, which was not only interesting but also helpful. Attached are some pictures!! Once it was determined that the river needed to be treated, I went out into the field to see how it was done. We went to seven different sites and treated with BTI.  Bioassay Update & Mosquito Work This Week:  Since I completed my first bioassay last week, we started to analyze the results of it! Although we still need to run duplicate bioassays, I learned some preliminary results in order to adjust for the future. We received fiv

  Natular SC Bioassay One:  This week, I set up and completed our first experimental Bioassay! I used 250mL of the treatments in four cups for each of the 8 treatments (ranging from 0.01 microliters/Liter to 1 microliter/Liter of Natular SC) as well as a control which used larval water. I placed about 15 larvae in each cup which totaled to be 504 larvae. I recorded results over each of the five days this week with Monday being 0 hours and Friday being 96 hours since the start. Each day I counted how many larvae were alive and how many were dead, then added up the total for each cup as well as the all together. To the right is a picture of the set up! Below is Total column of the data sheet created:  Total Time (hours) since start of experiment  Alive Dead Total  0 504 0 504 24 347 157 504 28 277 227 504 72 235 269 504 96 207 297 504 I enjoyed completing my first complete bioassay, and I am excited to work on a few more over the course of the summer. I also am interested in the statis

  During my first week as an intern, I got a taste for both lab and field work!! In the lab, I first learned common types of mosquitoes including the Asian Tiger mosquito or Aedes Albopictus, which we will be working with over the course of the summer. I worked with “Dr. Jack” Petersen a lot this week, and he was incredibly informative on all things mosquitoes! I was very excited to get started, and we set up a new infirmary as well as a sample bioassay on the first day. I already feel more confident in my ability to determine different life stages of the mosquitoes. Additionally, much of the first week was defining the first bioassay we are going to be running with Natular SC, which is a larvicide that would be new to New Jersey.  Our research question is how many microliters of Natular SC are needed to treat 100 L of larvae? We hope to answer the question through a regression and probit analysis of the data. We then decided 8 different concentrations to use for 8 different treatments