Liana Linn, Entomology Lab Technician

How did you get involved with MMCD?

I had to do an internship in college. I went to the U of M, I did Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, and so I did my internship at the Sally Manzara Interpretive Nature Center in Lake Elmo. The owner of the nature center, he wanted to do a biotic index of the aquatic invertebrates in the water.

So, I was doing that, and there was a [MMCD] field worker outside, and we ended up chatting and being like ‘Hey, what are you doing’, and we were sitting and talking about it, and she was like ‘Dude. You should work here. Because I think you would really, really like it’.

She really recommended that I apply, talked it up a lot, really enjoyed it, so I did apply, and I got in the lab! Last year was my first year, this is my second year.

What do you do on a daily basis?

[Field technicians] take the larval samples, and they give us a representative sample of what they got out of the water. There’s species of mosquitos that don’t bite people, and there’s species of mosquitos that carry certain diseases, and so we get those samples and then we identify them, and then depending on the species of mosquito, there’s certain thresholds we have to meet where we then will go treat it.

So yeah! I look at mosquitos all day! And I count them, and I identify them. And it’s kind of fun though because there’s like the larval samples, and then there’s container samples. So like, when there’s standing water in a tire, or things like that, certain species will lay their eggs in certain types of situations. And those ones are really fun to do - I’m doing them right now - because they’re like actually interesting species that come up because you don’t get to see them all the time.

Why do you feel your work is important?

You want people to go outside and appreciate nature and things. I often feel like people are too detached from the earth, and you want people to feel safe going outside, and you want people to feel comfortable going outside and not getting bit.

And then we also do, like, the disease testing. When we get adults, if we get a certain amount of a certain species, we’ll pool them and then Jordan, the vector ecologist, will test them for like, West Nile Virus, the Eastern Equine Encephalitis, you know, it sounds scary, but at least we’re doing it, because then we just wouldn’t know.

What is the most interesting part of your job?

I think the vector control is really cool. Like, what Jordan does with the virus testing and stuff like that. I think it’s really cool that we, not only do we do the mosquito control, but we also like, do public health.

Also, some of the mosquitos are very beautiful to look at! It’s really fun to get like a rare species too, and be like ‘Oh! I found this thing!’, and then everyone in the lab is like ‘Oh my god you found the thing!’.

Why do you enjoy your position?

You know, it’s a bunch of bug nerds, sitting in a room and talking about bugs all day! Last year I worked with Diane, and it’s really fun working with people who are so experienced with this stuff. Like I could work here literally forever.

The only reason that we are employed and have a lab here, and this place even literally exists, is because we care to be environmentally friendly, and the metro area cares to be environmentally friendly. And I think that’s really cool, that I get to do a job that’s so conscious of the environment while also doing control.

What have been some fun/memorable moments?

Every other year you have to do a survey to make sure that you’re not affecting other species of aquatic invertebrates. They’re called “multi-plates”, so it’s like, a long screw thing, and there’s wood circles all along it, and so the aquatic invertebrates will go and lay their eggs in between them, or like hang out in there. And then we go through and we scrape all the stuff off, and then this year we’re going through the stuff that we scraped, and are pulling out all of the living creatures, which is ok because we’re doing survey to make sure that everything is going good.

It’s just really cool to like look through and be like, ‘What is that thing??’, and then we all will get up and pull out a taxonomic key and we’ll find it and be like ‘oh my gosh that’s so cool!’ It’s fun to see the tiny little living things that you’ve never seen before because like, why would you have seen that before?

Like, everyday I find something where I’m like ‘Wow, I didn’t even know that existed or was a thing.’ And it just makes you appreciate even more like, why I’m doing what I do.

How is the work culture at MMCD?

I’m literally working here because of a raving review from somebody who worked here! You know? There’s a lot of opportunity for learning about other things and getting to nerd out on bug stuff! We all work in the lab because we like bugs! And people are very supportive and people care about you and you feel like people care about you.

The opportunity for learning is really cool. Like I don’t feel like I’m doing the same thing all the time and not learning anything new.