Joseph Fiscella: Week 5 at Suffolk County Vector Control

This past week, we transitioned away from setting fish traps and returned to our routine mosquito surveillance. On Tuesday, we got the opportunity to visit a new site in Mastic Beach. While we were there, I collected my most abundant larvae sample to date. There were about 50 larvae from one dip, and the water was extremely shallow, so I wasn't even filling my dipper all the way. Usually, if there are larvae present in the dips, I average around two to three, so this was definitely a surprise. We ended the week on Friday by doing a morning surveillance sweep of Gardiner Park. The interns and I were just there the week prior collecting fish traps. However, there was an incredibly noticeable difference in the amount of adult mosquitoes flying around. This made dipping the marshes there a bit more difficult, but the stretches of land close to the water received a nice breeze, which pretty much made those areas mosquito free.

A highlight of the week was getting the opportunity to speak with one of our supervisors, Moses, about existing scientific literature about ticks. He walked us through his own past sampling method using PVC pipe "arenas." One big takeaway from this was learning just how hard it is to truly eliminate confounds and sampling artifacts from tick sampling. Variables like weather, humidity, tree canopy coverage, and animal activity surrounding sampling sites all play a role in tick activity. However, differences in sampling results might arise from how vigorously you scrap the leaf litter or how much perfume/cologne you are wearing. By the end of this week, I had a much bigger appreciation for how detail oriented tick research is. This upcoming week, as the weather permits, the interns and I hope to visit some new tick sites. Enjoy some photos from the marshes below!







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