Hard Ticks Infesting Dogs in Hungary and their Infection with Babesia and Borrelia Species

Abstract

A survey was carried out in Hungary to investigate the occurrence of hard tick species (Acari: Ixodidae) collected from dogs and Borrelia and Babesia spp. detected in them. In total, 1,424 ticks were removed from 477 dogs appearing for clinical consultation in veterinary practices and clinics countrywide. Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus were the most common species occurring in most of the studied areas. Females of these two species were selected for molecular analyses. One to twelve specimens were used in each sample for DNA extraction. Polymerase chain reactions were performed with BSL-F/BSL-R primers for detecting Borrelia spp. in I. ricinus and with PIRO-A1/PIRO-B primers to amplify Babesia spp. DNA in D. reticulatus. Randomly selected PCR products were sequenced to identify the pathogens' species or subspecies. DNA of Borrelia spp. could be detected in six (5.6 %) from 108 I. ricinus samples and 43 (29.9 %) from 144 D. reticulatus samples were PCR-positive for Babesia spp. Sequencing revealed the highest similarity with Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia garinii and Babesia canis canis, respectively. Babesia and Borrelia spp. were identified in ticks with molecular methods for the first time in Hungary, and a high prevalence of B. canis canis in D. reticulatus females collected from dogs was detected.

Comparative population dynamics of a generalist (Ixodes ricinus) and specialist tick (I. hexagonus) species from European hedgehogs

“…Our data are consistent with those of numerous studies in Central and Northern Europe with large variations in nymph and adult numbers and with peaks occurring in spring and autumn and a larval peak in summer (e.g. Nilsson 1988; Szell et al 2006;Földvári et al 2007). This indicates that our experimental setup mirrors the natural population dynamic situation for this species even though the high density of hosts is likely to have increased the population levels.…”

“…Like Andrews et al (1982) and Chilton et al (1992), we could observe on-host niche preferences in the both tick species. Ixodes hexagonus prefers the back and the anal region of its host, while I. ricinus is often found on the head and the belly, but occurs only occasionally on the back (Fischer 2007). This, combined with the vastly different host and off-host habitat spectrum suggest that competition for habitat and hosts can be excluded as a mechanism to regulate I. hexagonus via I. ricinus populations.…”

Seroprevalence of Some Vector-Borne Infections of Dogs in Hungary

“…Later Borrelia spp. could be detected with PCR in six (5.6%) of 108 I. ricinus samples removed from dogs, and sequencing revealed the highest similarity with B. afzelii and B. garinii (Földvári et al 2007). Surprisingly, almost 10 times more dogs were seropositive for A. phagocytophilum (n = 102) than for B. burgdorferi (n = 11).…”

Host preferences of immature Dermacentor reticulatus (Acari: Ixodidae) in a forest habitat in Germany

“…It is associated with a variety of different tick-borne pathogens including Omsk-hemorrhagic fever virus (OHFV, Kharitonova and Leonov, 1986;L'vov, 1988), tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV, Kozuch and Nosek, 1971;Nosek, 1972), Anaplasma phagocytophilum (Zivkovic et al, 2007), Coxiella burnettii (Parola and Raoult, 2001;Řeháček et al, 1991), Francisella tularensis (Hubálek et al, 1997;Parola and Raoult, 2001), Rickettsia spp. including R. helvetica (Dobec et al, 2009), R. slovaca (Fernández-Soto et al, 2006;Stańczak, 2006) and R. raoultii (Matsumoto et al, 2009;Mediannikov et al, 2008) as well as the protozoan Babesia canis (Beugnet and Marié, 2009;Földvári et al, 2007). Although D. reticulatus probably does not play a major role in the transmission of pathogens to humans since it only occasionally feeds on them (Dautel et al, 2006;Estrada-Peña and Jongejan, 1999), both adults and immatures of this species are likely to play an important role in the maintenance of enzootic cycles of at least some of the pathogens mentioned above.…”

“…The adults of D. reticulatus show a bimodal seasonal activity, with peaks in spring and autumn that temporarily overlap with the seasonal activity of adults and nymphs of Ixodes ricinus (Földvári et al, 2007;Hornok, 2009;Immler, 1973;Széll et al, 2006;Szymanski, 1987aSzymanski, , 1987b. However, some individuals can be found throughout the year, including the winter months (Széll et al, 2006).…”