Archive for the ‘Ticks’ Category

Removal of Leaf Litter & Snow Reduces Blacklegged Ticks – Webinar

https://www.northeastipm.org/ipm-in-action/the-ipm-toolbox/tick-ipm-7-leaf-litter-snow-removal-for-tick-reduction/

Tick IPM #7: Leaf Litter/Snow Removal for Tick Reduction

http://<iframe width=”925″ height=”520″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/izbHKkYC1OY” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture” allowfullscreen></iframe  Approx. 1 Hour

Recorded October 7, 2020

This webinar focuses on developing preventative landscaping methods to reduce blacklegged tick (a.k.a. deer tick) populations. Research has suggested that both leaf litter and snow were overwintering predictors for nymphal tick survival. Dr. Stafford discusses how the removal of leaf litter and snow reduces the survival of blacklegged ticks and, if these preventive management practices were implemented, they could assist in the reduction of tick-borne diseases in the future.

Download presentation slides (PDF, 4.7 MB)

Dr. Kirby C. Stafford III

Dr. Kirby C. Stafford III, Chief Scientist (Head) of the Department of Entomology and State Entomologist (State Plant Regulatory Official) at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station

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**Comment**

I wish that we would also go back to doing prescribed burnings, which work:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/07/18/frequent-prescribed-fires-can-reduce-risk-of-tick-borne-diseases/

Also, for hunters, put down a permethrin treated tarp when hanging deer to kill any females which may drop off:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2020/11/09/moose-ticks-are-dining-on-local-deer/

For more on tick prevention:  https://madisonarealymesupportgroup.com/2019/04/12/tick-prevention-2019/

Category:

Prevention, research, Ticks

Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases of Colorado, Including New State Records for Areas Radiatus & Ixodes Brunneus

https://academic.oup.com/jme/advance-article/doi/10.1093/jme/tjaa232/5961600?guestAccessKey=0b81625f-4e0a-4a09-aed2-2305b5f035e4

Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases of Colorado, Including New State Records for Argas radiatus (Ixodida: Argasidae) and Ixodes brunneus (Ixodida: Ixodidae)

H Joel Hutcheson,  James W Mertins,  Boris C Kondratieff,  Monica M White Journal of Medical Entomology, tjaa232, https://doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjaa232Published: 09 November 2020 Article history

Abstract

We report 28 species of ticks (Acari: Ixodida) from Colorado (CO).

We include the soft ticks (Argasidae):

Argas (Argas) cooleyi Kohls and Hoogstraal, Argas (Persicargas) radiatus Railliet, Carios (Alectorobius) concanensis (Cooley and Kohls), Carios (Alectorobius) kelleyi (Cooley and Kohls), Ornithodoros(Pavlovskyella) hermsi Wheeler et al., Ornithodoros (Pavlovskyella) parkeri Cooley, Ornithodoros (Pavlovskyella) turicata (Dugès), Otobius (Otobius) lagophilus Cooley and Kohls, and Otobius (Otobius) megnini (Dugès).

We include the metastriate hard ticks (Ixodidae) Dermacentor (Americentor) albipictus (Packard), Dermacentor (Dermacentor) andersoni Stiles, Dermacentor (Dermacentor) parumapertus Neumann, Dermacentor (Dermacentor) variabilis (Say), Haemaphysalis (Aboimisalis) chordeilis (Packard), Haemaphysalis (Gonixodes) leporispalustris (Packard), and Rhipicephalus (Rhipicephalus) sanguineus Latreille.

Prostriate hard ticks include Ixodes (Ixodiopsis) angustus Neumann, Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) baergi Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes (Trichotoixodes) brunneus Koch, Ixodes (Scaphixodes) howelli Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) kingiBishopp, Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) marmotae Cooley and Kohls, Ixodes (Ixodiopsis) ochotonae Gregson, Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) sculptus Neumann, Ixodes (Ixodiopsis) soricis Gregson, Ixodes (Ixodes) spinipalpis Hadwen and Nuttall, Ixodes(Phoeloioxdes) texanus Banks, and Ixodes (Ixodiopsis) woodi Bishopp. Argas radiatus and Ixodes brunneus represent new state records.

Review of collection reports revealed that inclusion of Ixodes (Multidentatus) auritulus (Neumann), Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) cookei Packard, Ixodes (Phoeloioxdes) marxi Banks, and Ixodes (Ixodes) pacificus Cooley and Kohls is dubious or unconfirmed and, conversely, that C. concanensis and H. chordeilis have distributions that include CO.

We list an additional five species occasionally detected and 13 exotic species intercepted in CO.

Tick-host associations, geographical distributions, and medical/veterinary importance are included.

Category:

research, Ticks

Moose Ticks Are Dining on Local Deer

https://www.telegram.com/story/sports/2020/10/29/outdoors-moose-ticks-dining-our-deer/

Moose ticks are dining on local deer

Back-breaking work begins after succeeding in hunt
By Mark Blazis
Correspondent
Tufts University infectious disease authority Dr. Sam Telford collects a vial of engorged moose ticks from a local white-tailed deer.Tufts University Infectious disease authority Dr. Sam Telford Collects a vial of engorged moose ticks from a local white-tailed deer.Photo/Mark Blazis

Any time you shoot a deer that’s heavier than you are is worthy of celebration. So I was ecstatic when I dropped a big buck with my arrow last Monday evening. Few events are more exciting than finally getting a deer you’ve worked hard for. But once he’s down, the reality of potentially backbreaking work just begins.  (See link for article)

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**Comment**

Excerpt:  

Besides the ubiquitous moose ticks — also called winter ticks — there were many lice, louse flies and only male deer ticks, which are of no value to Sam’s research. “The female deer ticks must have already engorged and dropped off,” Sam concluded disappointingly.

This article mentions a very practical tip: spraying the area under dead bucks with permethrin or other acaricide right away to kill any females that drop off that could lay 2,000-3,000 eggs infesting your yard.
Hanging deer in the backyard can unintentionally spread ticks and disease.

Laying the ground with an insecticide-sprayed tarp is the answer to this.

Telford states that moose ticks in Northern New England suck the blood of 1st year moose enough to cause over half of them to die every winter. He states they don’t prefer human blood but the native Americans had an expression for them that translates, “bite like fire,” so they evidently DO bite humans!

Moose ticks also typically spend their entire life on one host.

The article states there were abundant, wingless louse flies or keds – which unfortunately Telford did not collect. The female releases her young on the forest floor where they attach to bedded deer, which they feed on almost exclusively.  Again, the article states they don’t care for humans but they CAN carry bacteria and their potential disease threat remains unclear.

Yet, the following articles show THEY DO TRANSMIT TO HUMANS:

It’s truly unfortunate that transmission studies remain in infancy.  The one all the researchers refer to has an inch of dust on it.

Category:

Ticks, Transmission, Uncategorized

Study Shows Cloth Dragging for Ticks Only Catch A Minority

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33128644/

One out of ten: low sampling efficiency of cloth dragging challenges abundance estimates of questing ticks

Siiri Nyrhilä 1, Jani J Sormunen 1 2, Satu Mäkelä 1, Ella Sippola 1 2, Eero J Vesterinen 1 2 3, Tero Klemola 4
Affiliations expand

Abstract

Hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) act as important vectors of zoonotic pathogens. For instance, Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. spirochetes pose a severe health risk as aetiological agents of Lyme borreliosis. Commonly, to study the abundance of questing (host-seeking) ticks, a 1 m2 piece of cloth is dragged over vegetation for a determined distance. Here, we designed a tick-sampling study to estimate the sampling efficiency of this standard method. We established 10 m dragging transects in a hemiboreal mixed forest patch in SW Finland for a 5-day monitoring period.

  • Five of the transects were cloth-dragged 3× a day,
  • whereas another five transects were dragged 6× a day in a manner that after each morning, midday and afternoon dragging, a second dragging was conducted on the same transect immediately.

Captured Ixodes ricinus ticks were subsequently analyzed for tick-borne pathogens. The initial population size of nymphal ticks on a transect was approximated by the accumulated nymph catch from the dragging sessions. The sampling efficiency of the cloth dragging was low, as

  • a single dragging in a previously untouched vegetation strip always caught less than 12% (mean 6%) of the estimated population of active nymphs that were assumed to be questing during the study.
  • Clear results were not found for daily activity rhythm, as ticks were caught in all daily dragging sessions.
  • Approximately every third nymph and every second adult carried a pathogen, but nothing indicated that the occurrence of a pathogen affected the likelihood of the tick being caught by cloth dragging.
Our results suggest that only a minority of active ticks can be caught by a single cloth dragging. The abundance estimates in many tick investigations might thus be downward biased.

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**Comment**

Cloth dragging to estimate tick prevalence has been used worldwide.  Similarly to the CDC’s past vastly low estimates of those infected with Lyme disease, and then having to increase this number 10-fold (which is still probably low), this study reveals tick prevalence to be much higher than we’ve been told due to single cloth dragging missing many ticks.  This in turn means there are more infected ticks that can transmit disease to animals and humans.

Such a simple study, yet profound in its findings.

Category:

research, Ticks

Mechanisms Affecting the Acquisition, Persistence & Transmission of Francisella Turlarensis in Ticks

Mechanisms Affecting the Acquisition, Persistence and Transmission of Francisella tularensis in Ticks

by Brenden G. TullyJason F. Huntley *
 
 
Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences, Toledo, OH 43614, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Microorganisms 2020, 8(11), 1639; https://doi.org/10.3390/microorganisms8111639
Received: 29 September 2020 / Revised: 15 October 2020 / Accepted: 21 October 2020 / Published: 23 October 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Epidemiology of Tularemia and Francisella tularensis)

Abstract

Over 600,000 vector-borne disease cases were reported in the United States (U.S.) in the past 13 years, of which more than three-quarters were tick-borne diseases. Although Lyme disease accounts for the majority of tick-borne disease cases in the U.S., tularemia cases have been increasing over the past decade, with >220 cases reported yearly. However, when comparing Borrelia burgdorferi (causative agent of Lyme disease) and Francisella tularensis (causative agent of tularemia), the low infectious dose (<10 bacteria), high morbidity and mortality rates, and potential transmission of tularemia by multiple tick vectors have raised national concerns about future tularemia outbreaks. Despite these concerns, little is known about how F. tularensis is acquired by, persists in, or is transmitted by ticks. Moreover, the role of one or more tick vectors in transmitting F. tularensis to humans remains a major question. Finally, virtually no studies have examined how F. tularensis adapts to life in the tick (vs. the mammalian host), how tick endosymbionts affect F. tularensis infections, or whether other factors (e.g., tick immunity) impact the ability of F. tularensis to infect ticks. This review will assess our current understanding of each of these issues and will offer a framework for future studies, which could help us better understand tularemia and other tick-borne diseases.
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**Comment**
About half of US tularemia cases are associated with tick bite, and annual cases are slowly increasing. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
http://www.siumed.edu/medicine/id/tularemia.htm
Tularemia, in aerosol form, is considered a possible bioterrorist agent that if inhaled would cause severe respiratory illness. It was studied in Japan through 1945, the USA through the 60’s, and Russia is believed to have strains resistant to antibiotics and vaccines. An aerosol release in a high population would result in febrile illness in 3-5 days followed by pleuropneumonitis and systemic infection with illness persisting for weeks with relapses. The WHO estimates that an aerosol dispersal of 50 kg of F. tularensis over an area with 5 million people would result in 25,000 incapacitating casualties including 19,000 deaths.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Category:

research, Ticks, Transmission, Tularemia