Abundance of Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) after the complete removal of deer from an isolated offshore island, endemic for Lyme Disease

From: JWissmille (jwissmille_at_aol.com)
Date: 09/25/04 

Date: 25 Sep 2004 00:44:10 GMT

J Med Entomol. 2004 Jul;41(4):779-84. Related Articles, Links

Abundance of Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) after the complete removal of
deer from an isolated offshore island, endemic for Lyme Disease.

Rand PW, Lubelczyk C, Holman MS, Lacombe EH, Smith RP Jr.

Vector-Borne Disease Laboratory, Maine Medical Center Research Institute,
Portland, ME 04102, USA. randp@mmc.org

Monhegan is an isolated 237-ha island lying 16 km off the coast of Maine.
Introduced to the island in 1955, white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus
Zimmerman, reached a density of approximately 37/km2 by the mid-1990s.
Black-legged ticks, Ixodes scapularis Say, first noticed in the late 1980s,
flourished thereafter. Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus Berkenhout) on Monhegan
are highly infected with Borrelia burgdorferi Johnson, Schmidt, Hyde,
Steigerwalt, and Brenner, the agent of Lyme disease. By 1996, 13% of year-round
residents had contracted the disease. The community's subsequent decision to
eliminate deer from the island provided a unique opportunity to monitor the
abundance of vector ticks in response to the complete and permanent removal of
the primary hosts of their reproductive stage. With the exception of humans and
their dogs and cats, there are no other potential hosts for adult I. scapularis
on Monhegan. From November 1996 to March 1999, all deer were removed from the
island. Previous annual fall flagging of vegetation from 1990 to 1998 produced
6-17 adult ticks/h, of which 24-41% were infected with the Lyme disease
spirochete. During this same period, up to 18 larvae and 4 nymphs were removed
per Norway rat live-trapped on the island each July. With the absence of deer
in the fall of 1999, both the density of host-seeking adult ticks and infection
prevalence rose substantially to 28/h and 75.0%, respectively. By the summer of
2003, however, no sub-adult ticks were found on rats, and that fall, only 0.67
adult ticks/h were flagged. Of the 68 adults collected from 2002 to 2003, 20
(29.4%) were infected. Over this same period, adult tick abundance on a
deer-populated, reference island continued to gradually increase.

PMID: 15311475 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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