The preparation of the new APIStrips has officially begun at the University of Almería and the UAL team is working hard to have them ready on time. Next year, close to 6000 APIStrips will be needed in the monitoring, which means a lot of time and effort. But the first 400 are now ready! They are safely stored and waiting to be shipped to all national coordinators, who will distribute them to the citizen scientists prior to the first sampling dates.
To avoid cross-contaminations, the APIStrips are prepared in a different laboratory, so that the Tenax is as far as possible from the pesticide standards. Also, the materials employed for the preparation are always carefully cleaned, and they are as well stored in a different room. Even a small amount of pesticide could contaminate the freshly prepared APIStrips, so these precautions are essential to ensure the viability of the samplings. Other quality control measures that will be taken are important as well: some APIStrips will be stored at the University of Almería and analyzed to make sure they were blank at the time of shipping (that is to say, no contamination during the preparation or storage in the labs).
So, to all National Coordinators, do not forget to include “a set of APIStrips” in your letter to Santa Claus this year!
