Rockies and High Plains Vector-borne Diseases Center Summer Internship

 Hi again! In this post, I want to talk about my experiences with egg collection during the summer. Thad, who you may know from the blog, collects wild egg rafts every week for his project, and I went with him once. He set up the "stinky water" (alfalfa water) traps the day before, and we went to the locations to collect them. Here is what they looked like: We looked for egg rafts, picked them up with a spoon, and put each in a separate container with water: When they hatch, having only one egg raft per container makes species identification easier. I used what I learned to collect mosquitoes from Logan, UT, and test them for resistance to LSPH. Alfalfa water that I fermented in my backyard One of the traps I set I got 13 egg rafts in Logan but forgot to take a picture. It was good to get more experience with field work.  

 Hi everyone! A few weeks ago, I went to SLCMAD and learned how to conduct virus testing in mosquitoes. They test for West Nile Virus and Saint Louis encephalitis using a qPCR method called TaqMan, which only measures the amplification of a specific sequence. Here's a picture of me learning how to use their very fancy multichannel micropipettes:  They also have an automated purification system to conduct the DNA extractions: They use 2 separate hoods to avoid contamination:  We only tested a few samples and none of them were positive for either virus. It was a very interesting experience and I got to use some equipment for the first time. 

Hi all! The past few weeks have been focused on getting acquainted with R Shiny Apps and building the Wyoming Tick Dashboard using the program. While there have been some quirks and definitely a learning curve, I have found that it's been a really interesting challenge. I have been researching scientific communication techniques when it comes to vector borne disease (specifically ticks) to inform how the information is presented to have the greatest impact. I have also spent a lot of time reviewing other state and organization's mosquito and tick dashboards to gain inspiration. While there is still a lot of work to go, I am proud of the rough draft that I have created.  -Jaea 

 Hello again, everyone! There are not too many updates this time. We received new traps but quickly realized they were not very effective. We then began experiments to determine which was our most effective Gravid trap. Other than that, at most of our sites, our traps seem to be catching many more mosquitoes, which is expected since August is prime mosquito season. That's pretty much it! So to compensate for the short post, I decided to share a few more photos. Thanks for reading!