Dissertation Research: Hosts vs. Habitat: Effects of Forestry Practice on the Abundance of Amblyomma Americanum (Acari: Ixodidae) in Missouri

将疾病传播给人类的昆虫和其他节肢动物通常被称为媒介(例如扁虱和蚊子)。人类土地利用被认为直接通过改变其栖息地质量和/或间接通过改变寄主的分布来影响传染病节肢动物媒介的丰度。我们正在对欧扎克森林中不同类型的林业实践(采伐、选择性采伐和不采伐)进行大规模实验，以检验这种关系。美洲Amblyomma americanum(独星扁虱)是几种新出现疾病的重要媒介，在这些森林中大量存在。我们假设伐木会通过增加主要宿主白尾鹿的丰度来增加美洲冰草的丰度。我们发现初步证据表明，与对照组相比，在记录的处理中，扁虱和鹿的数量都更多。我们建议开展更多的研究：1)增加采样，研究林业措施对美洲按蚊栖息地质量的直接影响；2)研究林业措施对扁虱寄主的影响；3)利用新的分子技术量化不同寄主对美洲钩虫种群的贡献；4)通过数学模型分析林业和寄主管理对美洲钩虫种群的影响。这项研究将有助于我们理解人类土地利用对疾病媒介丰富程度的影响，并将提供研究生、本科生和K-12级别的教育机会。

Insects and other arthropods that transmit disease to humans are commonly referred to as vectors (e.g. ticks and mosquitoes). Human land use is believed to impact the abundance of arthropod vectors of infectious diseases directly via changes in their habitat quality and/or indirectly via changes in the distributions of the hosts that they feed upon. We are examining this relationship in a large-scale experiment investigating different types of forestry practice (clear-cutting, selective-logging, and no harvest) in Ozark forests. Amblyomma americanum (the lone-star tick), an important vector of several emerging diseases, is abundant in these forests. We hypothesized that logging would increase the abundance of A. americanum by increasing the abundance of white-tailed deer, the preeminent host. We found preliminary evidence for both higher tick and deer abundances in logged treatments compared to controls. We have proposed additional research to 1) increase our sampling and examine the direct effects of forestry practice on A. americanum habitat quality, 2) examine the effects of forestry practice on tick-hosts, 3) quantify the contributions of different tick-hosts to A. americanum populations using novel molecular techniques, and 4) analyze the effects of forestry and host management on tick populations via a mathematical model. This research will contribute to our understanding of the impacts of human land use on the abundance of disease vectors, and will provide educational opportunities at the graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 levels.