25th Annual Student Research Conference
Overwintering of Amblyomma americanum Larvae and Nymphs
Lucas Hauser
Dr. Stephanie Fore, Faculty Mentor
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is a common tick of the midwest. This tick has to acquire three blood meals to move between its three life stages. Previous research from our lab has constructed a timeline model that suggests that larval ticks emerge from eggs in summer and must acquire a blood meal before winter. My objective was to determine if unfed larval ticks can survive the winter in field conditions. To test this I enclosed both newly hatched larvae and recently fed larvae that molted into nymphs (control) in mesh enclosures and placed them on the ground in the forest and lightly covered them with leaves and soil litter. Three enclosures are sampled every other week to determine the proportion of dead and live ticks. Preliminary data suggests that unfed larvae do not overwinter and nymphs have a much lower mortality rate in the same conditions.
Keywords: Ticks, larvae and nymph stages, larvae do not overwinter, nymphs do overwinter
Topic(s):Biology
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 314-2
Location: MG 1098
Time: 1:15