Week 1 Recap

 Hello again everyone, 

This blog post is a little bit late as I have already finished my second week, but I'll still recap my first week! Week 1 was highlighted by lots of field work. I visited the lab briefly on Monday morning to pick up various supplies like my tick suit, Zooka, and sampling materials. Then, I headed out into the field and participated in my first ever tick drag. Tick dragging is the process of dragging a white piece of cloth over the top of grass, leaf litter, and fallen debris. We then collect the ticks that attach to the cloth (or ourselves), and these samples will be tested for any diseases. When tick dragging I don a white jumpsuit so I may easily identify ticks that may have attached to me. 

On Tuesday, I headed out into the field again. This time I ventured north, up to the Champlain Islands of northeastern Vermont. This is my personal favorite part of Vermont, as it has incredible views of the mountains standing stoic above the lake. I followed a route that visited 7 sites, one of which was nearly in Canada! At each site along this route there are these small black boxes set up on the forest floor. The goal of this collection is to target the mosquito species Culiseta melanura. Specifically, we are looking to collect Cs. melanura that have recently had a blood meal. Once a Cs. melanura has fed on its host (usually a bird or rodent), it will hide in these black boxes to lay its eggs. That's where I come in! When I visit each site, I use this device called a Zooka, which is like a vacuum. I vacuum each black box (there are 10 at each site), and keep the samples on ice. I take these samples back to the lab. Once at the lab, I will sort through any bycatch, separate out the blood fed mosquitoes, put each blood fed mosquito in a separate vial, then identify and count the rest of the mosquitos I caught. 

On both Wednesday and Thursday I went out for ticks again. Then, on Friday, I learned another route for mosquitos that I will be following each week. To finish off the week, I spent the last half of my Friday afternoon doing some mosquito ID. Overall, it was a great first week and I am really happy with my experience so far. I look forward to the rest of internship!