The Effects of Bifenthrin Mosquito Treatments on Soil Fauna Found In Residential Lawns

The goal of this experiment was to find the effects that this particular mosquito has on the diversity of and quantity of fauna in the soil of a residential lawn. This topic is largely unexplored specifically and is significant because of the important role soil fauna plays in healthy soil. The hypothesis of this experiment was that the mosquito-treated lawn would contain less and less diverse soil fauna than the control lawn because the insecticide would kill more than just the targeted mosquitoes. To collect soil samples from both the treated yard and the control yard, a two-inch plug cutter was used. The samples were then placed in filters under a light source to filter out the soil fauna into jars filled with 100% ethanol, which killed them instantly. After four days in the funnels, the jars would be removed and searched through by pipet using a microscope and sorted into species. The different species were then noted, along with the amount of each species and overall organisms. The findings of this experimentation did not prove the original hypothesis to be true in that the mosquito-treated samples contained both less organisms and less diversity among organisms because the sample size was so small that no correlation was found. Some limits to the accuracy of this experiment include the limited number of samples taken, only nine total from each yard, and the limited number of yards to compare, as only one control yard and one mosquito-treated yard were compared