Using Landscape Analysis to Test Hypotheses about Drivers of Tick Abundance and Infection Prevalence with Borrelia burgdorferi.

ABSTRACT: Patterns of vector-borne disease risk are changing globally in space and time and elevated disease risk of vector-borne infection can be driven by anthropogenic modification of the environment. Incidence of Lyme disease, caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, has risen in a number of locations in North America and this increase may be driven by spatially or numerically expanding populations of the primary tick vector, Ixodes scapularis. We used a model selection approach to identify habitat fragmentation and land-use/land cover variables to test the hypothesis that the amount and configuration of forest cover at spatial scales relevant to deer, the primary hosts of adult ticks, would be the predominant determinants of tick abundance. We expected that land

SUBMITTER: Ferrell AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5923779 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature