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Forest management practices designed to meet varied landowner objectives affect wildlife habitat and may interrupt the life-cycle stages of disease vectors, including the black-legged tick, Ixodes scapularis Say (Acari: Ixodidae). Ixodes scapularis transmits multiple pathogens including Borrelia burgdorferi, the causative agent of Lyme disease, which is the most common tick-borne disease in the United States. There is evidence that a range of active forest management practices (e.g., invasive plant removal, prescribed burning) can alter tick densities and pathogen transmission. However, few studies have investigated relationships between forest stand structural variables commonly manipulated by timber harvesting and tick ecology. Foresters may harvest timber to create certain forest structural conditions like the mean number of trees, or basal area, per hectare. This study used a spatially replicated experiment in a blocked design to compare forest stands with a range of overstory structures and document variations in the midstory, understory, and forest floor, as well as microclimate conditions within tick off-host habitat. Greater numbers of trees or basal area per hectare correlated with greater canopy closure but less understory cover, stabilized microclimate temperature, higher microclimate humidity, and greater I. scapularis nymph densities. A random forest model identified understory forest structure as the strongest predictor of nymph densities. There was no relationship between the number of trees or basal area per hectare and daily deer (Odocoileus virginianus Zimmermann) activity or nymphal infection prevalence. These findings provide a deeper understanding of tick-habitat associations within a forest stand and have the potential to inform forest management decisions.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jme/tjae030 | DOI Listing |
Parasit Vectors
December 2024
Global Health and Tropical Medicine- Institute of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, NOVA University of Lisbon, Rua da Junqueira 100, 1349-008, Lisbon, Portugal.
Background: Tick-borne rickettsioses (TBR) are emerging, neglected, zoonoses, caused by intracellular α-proteobacteria of the genus Rickettsia, that pose a growing public health concern. The aim of the present study was to evaluate rickettsial infections in questing ticks collected from four different ecological areas in mainland Portugal.
Methods: Over a two-year period, a total of 707 questing ticks were collected.
Clin Infect Dis
December 2024
Professor of Pediatrics and of Epidemiology, Yale University, Children's Hospital, West Pavilion, 20 York Street, New Haven, CT 06510 USA.
Lyme disease is caused by Borrelia species that are transmitted by Ixodes ticks prevalent in parts of the United States and Europe. A Lyme vaccine containing the OspA antigens from the single Borrelia species most prevalent in the United States was marketed in the 1990s, but was withdrawn because of unproven concerns about safety, which led to insufficient sales. Since then, the incidence of Lyme disease has increased in the United States owing to the geographical spread of infected ticks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMed Vet Entomol
December 2024
Department of Animal Production and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Experimental Sciences, Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir, Valencia, Spain.
Vector-borne diseases represent various sicknesses that are increasingly significant in human and veterinary health. Among the zoonotic agents transmitted by ticks, infections caused by the intracellular pathogens from the Anaplasmataceae family and piroplasmids (Babesia/Theileria spp.) are particularly notable due to the substantial economic losses they cause in the livestock sector.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVirus Res
December 2024
UK Health Security Agency, Science Group, Porton Down, Salisbury, UK; Department of Infection Biology, Faculty of Infectious and Tropical Diseases, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK; Health Protection Research Unit (HPRU) in Emerging and Zoonotic Infections, Institute of Infection and Veterinary and Ecological Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK.
Tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) is the most prevalent tick-borne viral disease in Europe and Asia. There are three main subtypes of the virus: European, Siberian, and Far Eastern, each of which having distinctive ecology, clinical presentation, and geographic distribution. In recent years, other TBEV subtypes have been described, namely the Himalayan and Baikalian subtypes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFArch Virol
December 2024
Department of Medical Entomology, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, 1-23-1 Toyama, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-8640, Japan.
Most members of the genus Orthonairovirus, represented by Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and Nairobi sheep disease virus, are tick-borne, and some have become a public health concern in recent years. Here, we report the isolation and genetic and biological characterization of a new orthonairovirus, designated as "Iwanai Valley virus" (IWVV), from Ixodes ovatus ticks in Hokkaido, Japan. The amino acid sequence of the viral nucleoprotein (NP) was found to be 34-45% identical to those of known orthonairoviruses.
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