Week 2: (6/10-6/14)

 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 statistical tests that will be run on it as well as how it compares to future results in the lab and the field. 

Mosquito Field Work this Week: 

This week I went on my very first house call. A woman complained of mosquitoes, and we found she had many tires around her yard holding water as well as a small pond on her property. Before starting this internship, I never realized how many things could be a habitat for mosquitoes including tires! On this call, we also looked for a possible place to put mosquito eating fish, which I thought would be pretty cool. The people at the house were also incredibly nice, and this older gentleman even talked to us about college basketball because I was wearing a Villanova shirt (go cats!), which I thought was funny. I also had my first tick encounter this week (which I think everyone in the office found funny), so I learned some more information about tick safety. Additionally, I went out again to collect the light traps and set mosquito traps. One more interesting thing I learned this week is that we are required to inform beekeepers when insecticides are being sprayed near their hives. The Hunterdon County group has an entire map with all of their mosquito, black fly, and tick sites as well as where each hive is located in the county. I entered some of the data points for the beehives that were registered this year! 

Black Fly Work this Week: 

This week, we started collecting some black fly samples from small creeks in the area. This is a project that I will be working on over the course of the summer by going to smaller creeks over the county. This week I collected four different samples to get started. I also learned how to work with them afterwards to sort and collect the black fly larvae. We place the samples in the refrigerator to kill them, and then go through each sample in a tray in the lab to separate the black fly in a vial of alcohol. I enjoyed separating them, but some of the larvae are so small that it is so hard to pick them up! I am excited to continue this project, and I think next week I will start going out on my own. I also went out this week to check the sites that were treated last week. Since it is still very early in the summer, the treatment worked very well and we hardly found anything at all. To the right is a picture I took while out in the field, but I have more pictures to come for this week. Overall, I had a great week!!!