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Week 4! A Lot Is Going On

 Hi everyone, and welcome back! We are now one-week away from the midpoint of my internship and everything is ramping up! Next week I will be in the midst of mosquito season as our state surveillance will be taking greater priority. This means that I will be spending more time driving to sites to place and collect from traps. This traps will include resting boxes and light/CO2 traps which I have previously mentioned, and a third, called a gravid trap. I will get into this more when it is applicable, but much of this past week has consisted of helping in preparation for the mosquito season. 

 

As the week began, I spent almost 2 whole days at the Wells Reserve. While as some of you may remember, on Tuesday mornings I have been participating in bird banding by way of collecting exotic tick samples, this week had an additional duty. I was fortunate enough to spend some time with some members of the UMaine Cooperative Extension as they began to establish a long-term tick surveillance site. This involved planning out transects where the members of this lab will drag for ticks monthly, and setting up a weather station. If you noticed, I used the term drag instead of flag in this case. That is because there is a difference!


Set up weather station

Dragging Vs. Flagging

Tick flagging, as I have reported it, has a different method than dragging would. In flagging, the corduroy material at the end of a dowel or stick is commonly passed by on the ground by way of sweeping in the side of the body. You could imagine if walking along a trail, there is forest to each side of you, and you would extend the flag into the shrubs or grass the collect ticks that way. 


Tick Flagging, Photo Credit. Boston Globe


When dragging, the material is placed behind the person as they walk along, in the shrubs or grass. There is not a sweeping motion made and the bottom facing side of the material is evaluated about every 10 meters. On a side note, there are times when flagging that the material must be assed every 10 meters, but that is dependent on the specific project and procedure. 


Tick Dragging, Photo Credit. Entomology Today


UMaine Weather Station 

So in explaining this, the members from UMaine’s lab participated in the tick drags as I was there to help with either carrying their supplies or helping in any way they needed. Additionally I knew the area a bit, so a field biologist from my lab and myself helped plot a location for UMaine’s long-term weather station. This structure does pretty much what it sounds like. Soil metrics, wind speed/direction, air quality, and many other attributes are recorded from this station and should be beneficial to studies in the future. While this project is done in cooperation with UMaine, their lab will likely take the reins on dragging, as their transects are digitally implanted into a GPS system. And our lab will look after maintenance of the weather station, due to the fact that the UMaine lab is close to a two- and half-hour drive away. 


Staking down the weather station



Bird Banding!

Additionally, I was able to spend Tuesday morning bird banding. While there is much more to report that wasn’t mentioned last week, I was able to get a picture holding an Eastern Towhee. 




Mosquito Prep

As I mentioned at the top of this post, mosquito season is approaching quickly, and I helped the lab prepare. On Thursday I was able to carpool around to 6 different sites in York County to set up resting boxes. At each site we set up 10 resting boxes, about 10 meters apart, so that next week collection could begin. While I do not currently have the York County mosquito route, even though I may help out, this seemed like a nice cruise around the county. This is mainly completed weekly and seems to be a nice start to the morning. 


Resting boxes set up, with another
about 10 meters ahead


Ticks!

On a different note, ticks! This week I drove up to Knox County to visit a site I had never been to before. Flagging here for 2 and half hours I was able to collect 30 ticks, with 4 of them being Ixodes Scapularis nymphs. When I returned to the lab the next day I thought it may be a good idea visually to separate the ticks collected into species, gender (if applicable), and life stage. The picture below identifies just how small and dangerous nymphs can be. It is important to always complete a thorough check of your body when returning from outdoors to prevent possible transmission of disease!


4 nymphs in the top petri dish, 
26 others in the second


Until next week when I hopefully can provide some further insight on mosquito surveillance, I hope you all enjoyed this week's post!


References

Cavanaugh, M. (2AD). Collecting and analyzing deer ticks - the Boston Globe. BostonGlobe.com. https://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/06/01/collecting-and-analyzing-deer-ticks/0s5GMn4D0eByflhViQHB2I/story.html 

Cloth dragging for Tick Collection. Entomology Today. (2018, October 1). https://entomologytoday.org/2018/10/01/southern-united-states-young-blacklegged-ticks-habitat-mystery-ixodes-scapularis-lyme-disease/cloth-dragging-for-tick-collection/ 


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