Publications by authors named "Ashley C Kennedy"

Article Synopsis
  • - The Nest Parasite Community Science Project aims to explore how food supplementation affects eastern bluebirds and their nest parasites, involving input from 69 stewards in 26 states between 2018 and 2021.
  • - Findings show that providing mealworms or suet increased the fledging success of bluebirds, despite the presence of common parasites like blow flies, fleas, and mites in the nests.
  • - The influence of food supplementation on parasite prevalence varied by year and location, with more stewards feeding bluebirds in the southern U.S., a trend that contrasts with other scientific projects.
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We present an annotated checklist of fleas (Siphonaptera) known to occur in the state of Delaware based on an examination of Siphonaptera collections at the University of Delaware and the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, as well as new specimens of fleas we collected from wildlife, other hosts, and tick flags. We review published records and compile them herein with our new records, which include 3 species previously unreported from Delaware. With these additions, there are now 18 flea species from 19 avian and mammalian hosts documented from Delaware.

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Public health messaging in the eastern United States has historically underemphasized the risks posed by lone star ticks (), focusing instead on blacklegged ticks (). This gap persists despite mounting evidence that lone star ticks also play an important role in disease ecology as confirmed vectors for a wide variety of tick-borne pathogens. These pathogens include several distinct bacterial agents that cause ehrlichiosis and tularensis in humans and dogs, a protozoal agent that causes cytauxzoonosis in cats, and emerging viruses such as Heartland, Bourbon, and Tacaribe.

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During September-December 2018, 25 live ticks were collected on-post at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in a home with a history of bat occupancy. Nine ticks were sent to the Army Public Health Center Tick-Borne Disease Laboratory and were identified as Carios kelleyi (Cooley and Kohls, 1941), a species that seldom bites humans but that may search for other sources of blood meals, including humans, when bats are removed from human dwellings. The ticks were tested for numerous agents of human disease.

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The New World species attributed to the genus Malaxa Melichar (Hemiptera: Fulgoroidea: Delphacidae) are reviewed with special reference to the type species Malaxa acutipennis from the Philippines. We provide an amended diagnosis for Malaxa acutipennis contrasted with the genus delineation presented for Chinese Malaxa, most recently by Hou et al. (2013).

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