5 weeks back in Hanover after 6 weeks of field work in Greenland and the real work still lies ahead. The answers to almost all of my research questions lie within a small box, one that contains almost 2,000 dried Greenlandic mosquitoes, each of which needs to be individually weighed on a microbalance. I have started on this endeavor, and it takes approximately 1-2 minutes to weigh each mosquito. You can do the math.
[My current most valuable possession.]
[Samples, and individual mosquitoes in foil weighing tins (yes, I made 2,000 of these).]
But in addition to the lab work, now is when the planning for next year really begins. I always come back from the field feeling refreshed, excited, and with my head exploding with ideas for future projects. I have to get these ideas down on paper and submit them to various funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation’s Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant program. With any success, I can return to Greenland next spring with a field assistant by my side and continue my mosquito study, and hopefully deliver my newest outreach project, details to come.
Have questions about my project, mosquitoes, or Arctic insects in general? Feel free to leave questions in the comments section.
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Thomas Overly
Hi Lauren- how much a mosquito weigh before and then after munching on an IGERT student?
Well, the adult mosquitoes that I collected in Greenland weigh between 1 and 2 milligrams, dry, that is… with the males significantly smaller than the females, like in a lot of insects. I suppose an IGERT student blood meal could easily double that size. Thanks for the question, Rossi.
[...] meeting of the Entomological Society of America. I shared the latest and greatest on my research on mosquitoes in Greenland (and yes, I’m happy to report that the weighing is done) at a poster session on Wednesday [...]