Week 1

Today was my first day of my internship! I was so excited to finally meet everyone I have been emailing for the past two months and obtain a better idea of the specifics of the project PhD student Ben Gregory has carried on with Dr. Fritz regarding the spatiotemporal organization of Culex mosquitos along an urbanization gradient. They have proposed that the relative abundance and distribution three West Nile virus vectors, Culex. pipens, Cx. restuans, and Cx. quinquefasciatus have been influenced by the rise of new niches novel in cities driven by urbanization. This research can be applied to raise questions of current city design, and how urban areas might be contribute to the public health issue that is West Nile virus, and how might cities be designed or innovated in the future to reduce the opportunity for niches that promote these vector species habitation.  

From a public health and epidemiological perspective I find this research to be fascinating, I had previously not considered how ecological and evolutionary biology may apply to epidemiology - even though now the connection seems quite obvious to me - I had always pictured the fields separate. I have wanted to become more aquatinted with ecological and evolutionary biology out of personal interest so I am thrilled to be able to participate in this research.

In addition to learning more about the background of this research project on the first day, we also started the first field day of the season! For the next three months; June, July and August We will be setting up gravid traps to collect mosquitos at 24 different sites across Maryland ranging from DC to Balitmore. These sites have been split into three groups; rural, suburban, and urban. Today, we started off with the closest sites to the University of Maryland. These sites included a DC neighborhood for our urban site, the Beltsville Farm for our rural site and a park in the College Park neighborhood for our suburban site. I got to set up traps with Ben and another intern, Izi from a different program the Department of Entomology is hosting. Gravid traps use Alfalfa hay that has been fermented to attract mosquitos in a specific life stage, it smells horrible!! but mosquitos love it. 

This is an example of a Gravid trap used to collect mosquitos. 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 3

Image
During the third week, Izi and I learned about how to prepare a “squish prep” otherwise known as a DNA extraction. This step was fun to learn because it involves more technical squish prep where we must dissect the mosquitoes by separating the thorax from their abdomen.  Picture of dissected Culex mosquito. Abdomen is used for squish prep and kept in a strip tube while the thorax is kept in a separate tube as the individual. To prepare for this first part of DNA extraction, we set up an ice bucket to keep the thoraxes, and four strip tubes to keep the abdomen. The tubes for the thoraxes are much bigger and are labeled with the mosquito's names, which include the year, their trap night, and the number of the individual. We organize the individual abdomens using a drawn diagram. Shown below. This is an example of the notebook setup and the microscope used to dissect the mosquitos. the beaker contains a 10% bleach solution for disinfecting the Petri dish and forceps. Generally, it is
Read more

Week 10

Image
 The week of July 29th is the last week of the NEVBD internship! I have learned many molecular techniques and taxonomic tools over these past 10 weeks. Initially, I underestimated the importance of surveillance and trapping Culex mosquitoes. Getting bit up by mosquitoes as a lifeguard for 5 years led me to doubt the efficacy of vector control efforts. The Fritz lab, however, has cleared my skepticism. The threat posed by mosquitoes and other vectors is undeniable; particularly considering the rise of global and local temperatures. The surge in Dengue and West Nile Virus cases within the DMV underscores the need for effective mosquito monitoring to prevent the risk of outbreaks in the future.   Despite widespread discussions and global awareness of climate change, many people underestimate the urgency of preparing for a hotter world, especially in public health. Learning about how institutions have begun to prepare for vector-borne diseases has been enlightening. I am eager to contribut
Read more

Week 2

Image
  After catching mosquitoes, the next step in the protocol is to sort mosquitos underneath a microscope. So to start off the second week of the internship, Ben showed me the proper way to identify different insects in the trap as well as the key field features of Culex mosquitoes! The first thing to look for to identify mosquitoes from other invertebrates are their scaly wings. They have hair-like appendages on the very ends of their wings. They also have a long proboscis, a long tubular mouthpiece used to suck up the blood of other animals. The insect above lacks scaly wings while the insect below is a Culex mosquito.  Culex in particular focuses on avians and people, though different subspecies have a preference for each group with Culex pipiens and Culex quinquefasciatus biting both humans and birds and people. The other species in the genus, Culex r estuans tends to feed primarily on birds. After identifying the insect to be a mosquito, the next field characteristic of Culex I w
Read more