Ticks are of vast importance to livestock health, and contribute to conflicts between wildlife conservation and agricultural interests; but factors driving tick infestation patterns on wild hosts are not well understood. We studied tick infestation patterns on free-ranging African buffalo (Syncercus caffer), asking (i) is there evidence for niche segregation among tick species?; and (ii) how do...

Ticks are important vectors of viruses that infect and cause disease in man, livestock, and companion animals. The major focus of investigation of tick-borne viruses has been the interaction with the mammalian host, particularly the mechanisms underlying disease and the development of vaccines to prevent infection. Only recently has research begun to investigate the interaction of the virus wit...

Ticks and the pathogens they transmit constitute a growing burden for human and animal health worldwide. Vector competence is a component of vectorial capacity and depends on genetic determinants affecting the ability of a vector to transmit a pathogen. These determinants affect traits such as tick-host-pathogen and susceptibility to pathogen infection. Therefore, the elucidation of the mechani...

At least 15 different infectious agents and diseases are transmitted or produced by ticks parasitizing dogs and cats in North America. Those infectious agents and diseases are distributed among eight different tick species that commonly infest dogs and cats. All but one of these species are hard ticks with a three-host development cycle in which each motile stage (larva, nymph, and adult) feeds...

BACKGROUND Tick borne encephalitis is the most frequent vector-transmitted infectious disease of the central nervous system in Europe and Asia. The disease caused by European subtype of tick borne encephalitis virus has typically a biphasic clinical course with the second phase presenting as meningitis, meningoencephalitis, or meningoencephalomyelitis. Cerebrospinal fluid pleocytosis is conside...

Encounters with ticks harboring pathogenic agents have demonstrated increasing public health implications. Tick surveillance in the Republic of Korea (ROK) is essential for determining tick distributions and potential regions where tick-borne pathogens may be found. Extensive collections (tick drags flagging) were previously performed by Force Health Protection & Preventive Medicine (FHP&PM), M...

Blacklegged ticks, Ixodes scapularis, can transmit single or multiple infections during a tick bite. These tick-borne, zoonotic become chronic and cause insidious diseases in patients. In the present tick-pathogen study, 138 (48.9%) of 282 ticks collected from 17 sites 6 geographic area eastern Canada harbored various combinations Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato (Lyme disease), Anaplasma phagoc...

Prevention of tick bites and transmission of tick-borne pathogens requires the use of molecules that target physiological processes crucial to both tick and pathogen survival. These molecules are best tested in standardized in vitro assays. Because hard ticks require several days to feed to repletion, the development of in vitro feeding assays for these species is challenging. A standard and ea...