Week 8

 After a week's hiatus to prevent blog monotony, I'm back! Summer session two is in full swing at UMD, and I've been immersed in Medical Terminology. It's proving to be an excellent foundation for my Anatomy course this fall, as the subjects frequently intersect.

At the Fritz Lab, the mosquito mayhem continues unabated. For each mosquito in the squish prep, the thoraxes are kept to ID the percentage of each species of mosquitoes in the trap later on. As such, we’ve reached a critical mass of thoraxes, completely depleting our freezer box supply! Ben and I have started pooling the thoraxes of mosquitoes into a single tube for each species for every trap night, but it has only freed up a singular freezer box. Further efforts of pooling will be needed next week. 



Ben works hard to pool the mosquitoes and free up some freezer boxes. 


This week’s fieldwork took us to the bustling Inner Harbor for trap setup. The challenge of finding parking in this tourist hot spot forced us to assemble the Gravid trap with lighting speed to avoid a ticket. 


Gravid Trap Set up at the IMET site. The Harbor of Baltimore is beautiful!


We also revisited Brighton Dam on the Patuxent River, a prime rural location. Our last visit yielded a staggering 400+ mosquitoes, dominated by Culex restuans. It took a whole morning to sort through that trap! Next summer, Ben hopes to begin investigating the thermal tolerances of Cx. pipens from urban and rural sites to see if there is a difference in thermal tolerance locally between individuals. As such, it is imperative to find enough Cx. pipens in rural areas like Brighton for this experiment to be possible.

 


Another Gravid Trap was set up downstream of Brighton Dam. It is a privilege to be able to participate in such aesthetically pleasing fieldwork and see the beauties of Maryland while coming to understand the distribution of Culex mosquitoes.


More exciting news: I'm thrilled to announce that my dedication to the UMD Entomology Department has paid off with a research assistant position for the rest of the summer and fall semesters! In addition to lab work this week, I have been busy filling out the documentation for the position and completing the required training in ethical research conduct.

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