White-tailed deer are required for adult Ixodes scapularis to mate and reproduce, but deer are not competent reservoirs of Borrelia burgdorferi - they do not pass the spirochete on to feeding ticks. So deer multiply tick numbers without contributing to the infected fraction. Removing deer from a small island reduces ticks; removing them from a continent does not.
Ixodes scapularis takes three blood meals over a roughly two-year life cycle. Larvae and nymphs feed mainly on white-footed mice and other…
Field studies in the northeastern United States routinely find a single white-footed mouse carrying dozens of attached Ixodes scapularis…
Ixodes marxi feeds primarily on tree squirrels and rarely bites humans, but it cycles Powassan virus lineage 1 through small mammals along…
Ixodes ricinus, the castor bean tick, is the European cousin of Ixodes scapularis and the dominant Lyme vector across Europe from Portugal…
Dermacentor albipictus is a one-host tick: larva, nymph, and adult all stay on the same animal for the entire roughly year-long cycle. A…
Despite expanding overlap with Lyme disease in the southeastern United States, Amblyomma americanum (the lone star tick) does not transmit…