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Week 4: (6/24-6/28)

 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. I also remade the test solutions so that we could rerun the experiment within the next week. In the field, I set a lot of traps this week (I think about 15). Some of these traps being in sites that were new for me towards the northern part of the county! I also went around in the morning one day and collected the traps for the first time. 


Other fun things: 

This week I was able to attend a meeting which was very interesting to me. There were people all over the state from vector control programs as well as other representatives like a vet and a nurse. I learned a lot about what the lab testing shows, such as how many mosquitoes and ticks have tested positive for different vector borne diseases like West Nile Virus and Lyme disease. I also got to hear about different things that people are noticing in different counties across the state. A lot of people mentioned that certain species are out a lot earlier this year than they typically are. I thought that was really interesting because I actually learned about that in my general biology class this past year. I enjoy seeing things I learn about in class in the real world. I also got the chance to tell people what I am working on this summer! 

This week, I also learned how to make mouth aspirators, which involved bending glass with fire (obviously awesome) as well as putting some tubing on the end of the glass with a net to prevent accidentally eating any mosquitoes. I enjoyed doing this because it was different than a usual day but still necessary and informative! I cannot believe next week will be around the halfway mark for this summer!! 


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