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Video Q&A ViewAttendees 5

Member Symposium

Ticks and Parasite Mites: From Ecology to the Molecular Bases of Host-parasite-microbe Interactions On-Demand Presentations

An ecological assessment of ticks in the southeastern United States

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In the United States (US), tick populations are increasing in abundance and species ranges are  expanding, which potentially leads to more tick encounters. To learn more about the environment associated with tick encounters, we identified ticks collected by foresters through work-related exposure and queried forestry-collected (FIA) variables from tick-encountered plots. Using these datasets, we identified FIA variables associated with the presence of three tick species and created environmental niche models (ENMs) with spatial data to test the hypothesis that tick encounters are associated with environmental variables. Variables associated with American dog ticks included carbon in standing dead trees, standing dead tree basal area, elevation, and live sapling belowground carbon. Lone star ticks were associated with live sapling belowground carbon, site productivity class, and horizontal distance to improved road. For blacklegged ticks, variables included carbon in soil organic material, elevation, slope, site productivity classes, water source, and forest type. Resulting ENMs confirmed areas in the southeastern US at risk for tick encounters and variables primarily associated with those distributions included elevation, land surface temperature, and landcover for American dog and lone star ticks and landcover and elevation for blacklegged ticks. Data presented here confirm and identify environmental variables associated with tick encounters and (potentially) variables useful for predicting risk and managing known environments. Finally, this work highlights collaborative efforts of continued government and academic partnerships as well as the need for enhanced tick surveillance.