Publications by authors named "Kacie Ring"
Ectothermic arthropods, like ticks, are sensitive indicators of environmental changes, and their seasonality plays a critical role in tick-borne disease dynamics in a warming world. Juvenile tick phenology, which influences pathogen transmission, may vary across climates, with longer tick seasons in cooler climates potentially amplifying transmission. However, assessing juvenile tick phenology is challenging in climates where desiccation pressures reduce the time ticks spend seeking blood meals.
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- Mosquito-borne diseases are heavily impacted by environmental factors, making it crucial to understand how these diseases respond to changes like temperature.
- Recent advancements in trait-based mechanistic models have enhanced our understanding of this response, although validating their predictions in real-world settings remains difficult.
- Using West Nile virus as an example, a new remote sensing method was employed to map temperature-related traits, revealing that the optimal temperature for mosquito infection rates aligns with model predictions, thereby improving our ability to predict disease risk.
A vector's susceptibility and ability to transmit a pathogen-termed vector competency-determines disease outcomes, yet the ecological factors influencing tick vector competency remain largely unknown. Ixodes pacificus, the tick vector of Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb) in the western U.S.
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