25th Annual Student Research Conference
Modeling the abiotic and biotic factors that describe the number of active Amblyomma americanum larva
Betsey C. York* and Alex Kaizer
Dr. Stephanie Fore and Dr. Hyun-Joo Kim, Faculty Mentors
We have been monitoring the number of active Amblyomma americanum (lone star tick) since 2007. Ticks were collected every other week from February to December in two permanent grids. We built a statistical model that described the number of active larval ticks based on various environmental variables. Model selection criterion was used to identify an appropriate model and significant variables. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression was the best fit. Of 63 models run with all combinations of six variables, the model based on degree days averaged over the previous sixty days (AvgDD60) and day length on day of sampling was favored. From the selected model, the expected change in larval counts for an increase of one degree Celsius over sixty days would result in an increase of 0.4% and an increase of one minute on the day of sampling would result in an increase of 0.7%.
Keywords: tick, modeling, statistics
Topic(s):Biology
Statistics
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 211-3
Location: MG 1098
Time: 0:30