Hard ticks (Ixodidae) in Romania: surveillance, host associations, and possible risks for tick-borne diseases

Abstract

Ticks and tick-borne diseases represent a great concern worldwide. Despite this, in Romania the studies regarding this subject has just started, and the interest of medical personnel, researchers, and citizens is increasing. Because the geographical range of many tick-borne diseases started to extend as consequences of different biological and environmental factors, it is important to study the diversity of ticks species, especially correlated with host associations. A total number of 840 ticks were collected between 1 April and 1 November 2010, from 66 animals, from 17 species in 11 counties, spread all over Romania. Four Ixodidae species were identified: Dermacentor marginatus (49.2%), Ixodes ricinus (48.3%), Hyalomma marginatum (2.4%), and Rhipicephalus sanguineus (0.1%). The obtained results indicate that D. marginatus is the most abundant tick species and I. ricinus is the most prevalent. As both of them are important vectors for human and animal diseases, the present paper discusses the associated risks for tick-borne diseases.

Tick Population in Goats and Sheep in Šabac

“…Both studied the temperature below which the activity of ticks is completely stopped and the temperature at which it expressed its full activity and found a significant relationship of tick activities and the degree of reduction of temperature for adult forms. This agrees with the data published about ticks in various part of Russia, Central Europe and the West Balkans (4,12,13,14,20,21,25,26,29,31).…”

“…During all the examinations, Ixodes ricinus was the most abundant tick species insheep and goats. The found species of ticks are most common in sheep and goats in the regions of the Western Balkans, Mediterranean and Central Europe (14,16,25,27,28,37,38,48).…”

“…A particular problem is that they spread diseases to humans, domestic and wild animals, which can be reservoirs, vectors and/or transient hosts for the tick-borne pathogens (5,12,14,20,23,35,36,37,41).…”

Biodiversity of Ticks and Fleas of Dogs in the Western Balkans – Preliminary Examinations

“…Faunistic and epidemiologica examination of tick fauna at Europa established dominate presence of hard ticks especially Ixodes ricinus and ticks from familly Rhipicephalus spp., Dermacentor spp., Haemaphysalis spp, Hyalloma spp and Boophilus spp. (Milutinović et al, 1996(Milutinović et al, ,1988Omeragić, 2011;Dumitrache et al, 2012;Pavlović et al, 2003Pavlović et al, , 2014. Most abundant fleas species are Ctenocephalides felis felis, the cat flea, Ctenocephalides canis, the dog flea, Pulex irritans, the human flea, and Echidnophaga gallinacea as well as Ceratophyllus gallinae, fleas found on poultry (Kalvelage and Münster,1991;Beck et al, 2006;Bond et al, 2007;Rinaldi et al, 2007;Farkas et al, 2009;.…”

Seasonal dynamics of Rhipicephalus rossicus attacking domestic dogs from the steppic region of southeastern Romania

“…The most exhaustive review on the distribution of hard-ticks in Romania was published almost 50 years ago [5]. In the few last years several studies [6-9] have been made but there is still poor information about hard tick species occurring on dogs and even scantier information regarding tick species seasonality. The tick fauna of Romania consists of 25 species [8].…”