Joseph Fiscella: Weeks 2 and 3 at Suffolk County Vector Control

It has been a very productive and interesting past two weeks at Suffolk County Vector Control. Our mosquito surveillance has continued, which has taken the team of interns and I to a wide variety of marsh sites across Suffolk County. I definitely think I'm becoming more efficient with my time out on the marsh. Specifically, I am focusing on conducting more thorough searches of the designated areas, being mindful of potential pooled holes in obscure locations on the terrain. I'm also finding it easier to actually observe the water sample after dipping and locate the mosquito larvae. This past Monday and Tuesday were of particular note, just because of how hot it was. On Monday the 23rd, it was roughly 90°F throughout the entire day, and Tuesday the 24th was just under 100°F. We were only out on Tuesday for about an hour due to the heat, but we spent the entire day out on Fire Island on Monday. I've been biking there before in previous summers, so it was really cool to explore new areas and understand the landscape in terms of mosquito populations. I even got to try out the pesticide blower myself!

For the past two Fridays, the interns and I were introduced to the fundamentals of tick sampling, which I found to be very methodical and enjoyable. Before we went the first time, we sprayed out clothing with permethrin, an insecticide that subdues ticks within 10 minutes after contact. With our pants tucked into our socks and our flags ready to go, we sampled two grids in a wooded area of Manorville. To sample for ticks, we drag a thick corduroy flag across the leaf litter, and then we use a lint roller to collect the ticks off of the flag. This method is extremely less time consuming compared to individually getting the ticks off with tweezers. There are different transects of the leaf litter of different lengths that we sample from, but the idea is to get a broader understanding of the tick populations in the designated grid. Right now, we are getting a lot of Amblyomma americanum nymphs, otherwise known as the lone star tick. We have only gone to the Manorville tick site so far, so I am looking forward to visiting more sites. In general, I'm curious how the tick populations will develop throughout the summer, such as when we will start getting more lone star adults.





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