Prevalence and Coinfection of Three Tick-Borne Pathogens in Questing Adult Blacklegged Ticks (Vilas County, Wisconsin).

In North America, the blacklegged tick () is a vector of several human pathogens, and tick-borne disease incidence is increasing. We estimated the prevalence of questing blacklegged ticks vectoring three zoonotic pathogens in Vilas County, Wisconsin. We collected 461 adult blacklegged ticks and used PCR to screen for the presence of pathogens that cause Lyme disease (), human granulocytic anaplasmosis (HGA, ), and babesiosis ().

Deer herbivory reduces web-building spider abundance by simplifying forest vegetation structure.

Indirect ecological effects are a common feature of ecological systems, arising when one species affects interactions among two or more other species. We examined how browsing by white-tailed deer () indirectly affected the abundance and composition of a web-building spider guild through their effects on the structure of the ground and shrub layers of northern hardwood forests. We examined paired plots consisting of deer-free and control plots in the Allegheny Plateau region Pennsylvania and Northern Highlands region of Wisconsin.

White-tailed deer are a biotic filter during community assembly, reducing species and phylogenetic diversity.

Community assembly entails a filtering process, where species found in a local community are those that can pass through environmental (abiotic) and biotic filters and successfully compete. Previous research has demonstrated the ability of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) to reduce species diversity and favour browse-tolerant plant communities. In this study, we expand on our previous work by investigating deer as a possible biotic filter altering local plant community assembly.

Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus survival on artificial turf substrates.

Objective: Artificial turf has been suggested as a risk factor for community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA). This is an experimental study looking at survival of CA-MRSA on artificial turf.

Methods: MRSA strain USA-300-0114 was grown as either planktonic cells or biofilms in liquid cultures of beef heart infusion broth overnight at 37 °C.

Paying the extinction debt in southern Wisconsin forest understories.

The lack of long-term baseline data restricts the ability to measure changes in biological diversity directly and to determine its cause. This hampers conservation efforts and limits testing of basic tenets of ecology and conservation biology. We used a historical baseline survey to track shifts in the abundance and distribution of 296 native understory species across 82 sites over 55 years in the fragmented forests of southern Wisconsin.

Shifts in southern Wisconsin forest canopy and understory richness, composition, and heterogeneity.

We resurveyed the under- and overstory species composition of 94 upland forest stands in southern Wisconsin in 2002-2004 to assess shifts in canopy and understory richness, composition, and heterogeneity relative to the original surveys in 1949-1950. The canopy has shifted from mostly oaks (Quercus spp.) toward more mesic and shade-tolerant trees (primarily Acer spp.