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Week 5

 Meeting NEVBD Interns!

Friday I met many of the other NEVBD interns over zoom. I really enjoyed meeting everyone and hearing about their projects. It was interesting to hear about what the other interns are doing on a day-to-day basis, and I found that many of us do similar things like mosquito trapping and ID. I found it very helpful to hear the tricks they learned that helped them have an easier time IDing mosquitoes and I found myself using a lot of the techniques they mentioned these past two weeks as I worked in the lab. It's great to be able to connect and learn from each other.

Mosquito Trapping 

We changed our trapping schedule this week to make sure that we hit every town with four-day work week. I set up eight traps on Monday, collected them Tuesday, then set up eight on Thursday and collected them Friday. We have been collecting a lot more mosquitoes than last year (in the couple of weeks we've been trapping, we've already surpassed the total number of mosquitoes we caught last year). 

My CDC traps are often packed with mosquitoes. This is likely because of the rainy and relatively warm winter we had this year. I am connecting the weather pattern changes that I learned about in my classes to the changes in the mosquito populations. Seeing the effects of climate change on the mosquito populations firsthand has made the issue of climate change more real to me. I'm also realizing how easy it can be in an area like Central Massachusetts to easily ignore the effects of climate change and become detached from the issue. It's important that we are reminded that climate change is affecting all of us, but some are affected more than others. If we are feeling the effects in Central Massachusetts, then others are feeling it worse in higher risk areas. In the context of mosquito control, increasing patrol measures and management is very helpful in mitigating the effects of climate change, but it is not solving it.  We must continue to push for changes that reduce GHG emissions so that we do not surpass critical thresholds. 


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