July 14th to 25th - Fort Collins

 The first week was spent mostly trapping wild mosquitoes at a cute little area called magpie meander and taking care of pupae from Wyoming. We have been using public VDCI data to trap in areas with high numbers of mosquitoes that are mostly Cx. Tarsalis. Personally, I have been beginning the genomics portion of our research. I have performed DNA extractions of the tarsalis mosquitoes ensuring they are separated by dead, recovered, and alive. The intention of collecting this data is to compare the genetics of dead tarsalis (least resistant) to recovered tarsalis (more resistant) then, alive tarsalis (most resistant). 

The second week has been spent collecting valuable control data. We have raised three lab colonies: Culex tarsalis, Culex pipiens, and Culex quinx. Each received from the CDC as control lab colonies. Due to the colonies being bred within a lab environment exclusively they do not (should not) exhibit resistance to the extreme that wild mosquitoes do. Interestingly, they are also much smaller than wild mosquitoes. We are testing both commonly used pyrethroids and organophosphates. Another important element is pinning each species of mosquito for use in IDing later. Especially, the pipiens and quinx which are essentially indiscernible.