This multi-year research program aims to understand the ecological drivers for the geographic variation in Lyme disease risk in eastern North America. More information is available at http://lyme-gradient.tennessee.edu
We have installed our arenas for future host preference experiments. Perhaps the most memorable part of the process was bringing the IACUC review committee out into the mosquito-infested poison ivy to check them, on an afternoon when the heat index was hovering around 105F...
Here are some more photos of tick on skinks - these guys are participating in Rick and Cathy's Blood Meal Analysis (BMA)validation trials. Hopefully the Reverse Line Blot will show these ticks did indeed feed on lizards and not, say, wombats!
Hello from SRS! The season started out with a BANG! but since then capture rates have dropped considerably. It has been over 100F plus high humidity for the past week or so and after very dry weather, we have been getting thunderstorms every night. Here are some photos from our past few sessions. 2 Racerunners
Greetings from Ft. McCoy!!! We had an exciting and wet Trap Phase 13!!! Check out the cool lean to that Marty built for processing. Props to Lydia sticking it out for the 24hour tick garden observations.