Black-Legged Tick Distributions, Small Mammal Abundances, Mast Production, and Vegetative Influences on Lyme Disease Apparent Prevalence on Fort Drum Military Installation, New York

Abstract

Lyme disease is the most common infectious disease spread by black-legged ticks in the Northern Hemisphere. Lyme disease is a vector-borne zoonotic disease typically caused by bacterial spirochetes of the species Borrelia burgdorferi. The primary vector of Lyme disease in the Midwestern and eastern United States is Ixodes scapularis, the deer or black-legged tick. Although there are several preventative measures against ticks that carry Lyme disease, such as public education regarding personal protection (e.g., wearing light colored clothing, tucking pants into socks, wearing repellent, promptly inspecting oneself to remove ticks, getting pets vaccinated) and recommended control measures, it is important to understand how the disease is transmitted and which factors increase the potential risk of contracting the disease. Even with these preventative measures, which are not necessarily available worldwide, tick-borne diseases are increasing both in numbers and impact to the overall human population, and there are still several knowledge gaps and conflicting findings that need to be elucidated. For these reasons, there exists a need for further research on Lyme disease ecology to identify steps necessary to decrease disease prevalence and reduce human exposure. I conducted a field study on the Cantonment Area of Fort Drum Military Installation, New York, which is representative of a suburban community with multiple cover types. From May 2015-November 2016 I surveyed the Cantonment Area to evaluate the basic distributions of Ixodes scapularis and small mammal host species, their relationships with vegetative characteristics, and associated Lyme disease apparent Formatted for submission to Journal of Medical Entomology Lyme Disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) Apparent Prevalence and Black-legged Tick (Ixodes scapularis) Temporal and Spatial Distributions on Fort Drum Military Installation, New York