Mosquito Sampling Mosquito sampling focuses on how the diversity of mosquito communities, and the demography and phenology of associated populations, will change in different habitats and ecosystems over time. Mosquitoes are easy to sample, sensitive to environmental change, and present at each of the NEON domains. Field technicians erect a single hanging CO2 trap in each of 10 Mosquito Plots located in areas representative of the vegetation community at SRER. Traps are deployed every two weeks during the active mosquito season for two consecutive nights and the intervening day. Pathogen testing involves a variety of mosquito species, especially those in the genera Culex and Aedes. General pathogen screening takes place to detect alphaviruses, bunyaviruses, and flaviviruses, with follow-up tests on virus-positive pools to identify pathogens. A subset of all the mosquitoes collected at SRER is submitted for DNA barcoding each year. DNA barcoding is a taxonomic method that uses a short genetic marker (mitochondrial gene, COI) to identify species. NEON is using DNA barcoding to establish a library of mosquitoes at our sites to aid in specimen identification. Along with expert morphological identifications, this will ensure consistency of identifications across many technicians at different sites for 30 years of data collection.