Flagging 101

With housing finalized on campus at Old Dominion University, I met up with my adviser Holly to get an overview of the Tick surveillance project. The amount of data that has been collected is beyond extensive. Each tick collected in the field is described down to gender, life stage, and species and separated into an individual container. Then using PCR the ticks DNA is analyzed to discover if it carries any of the pathogens. A bit overwhelmed with all the tick information, I began to mull through the information on the way to the first field sight.

Holly and Amy, an ODU student with a tick interest, introduced me to the basics of tick flagging. We traveled via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Kiptopeke field site. There are three areas to be sampled here, so after tightening my muck boots, spraying down with bug spray, I got a lesson in flagging 101. Tweezers are used to collect the adult ticks, and they are placed in a small vial with mesh netting which acts as a jungle gym to prevent the ticks from escaping each time you open the vial. So, we began flagging along a 25m transect with a piece of white denim attached to a pole.

The adults are clear to spot on the flag, catching them is a different story. When there is only one tick in the small vial it is fairly simple, remove the cap and carefully pick the tick from the flag with tweezers and place them in the vial. Once you have quite a few ticks in the vial...the story changes a bit. After a few moments of mutiny when all the adult ticks decided to flee from the vial at once, my technique improved.

The nymphs are much more difficult to distinguish from other matter on your flag. Nymphs look like specks of dirt that move. They are too small to pick up with tweezers effectively so we use bits of tape. Along the path we probably picked up over two hundred nymphs between the three of us.

My identification skills are still in need of improvement, but the fieldwork definitely helped cement much of the information I had learned earlier in the lab.

Below is an example of a vial, flag rolled up in the background and tweezers, typically we don't use tape to restrain ticks because adults are strong enough to pull themselves off, but when you are trying to flag before the sun goes down tape is a good way to prevent mutiny and save time.