The blacklegged tick (BLT) or Ixodes scapularisis a major vector for many diseases in the United States. The BLT is a parasite that locates hosts by questing. Questing is the way the BLT locates a host which involves climbing to the top or edge of plants or shrubs, extending its forelegs, and waiting for a host to pass by so it can latch on to feed. In this experiment, different plants and materials were used as climbing surfaces to determine if there was a specific surface the BLT prefers to quests on. This was designed to test how different surfaces affect the behaviors of the BLT such as the height they can quest, how long until they begin to climb, and how long they quest for. Three plants were used as treatments groups along with a wooden dowel and a metal rod as controls. Each treatment had a height of 40cm and placed in a petri dish at a 45 degree angle held in place by clay. From there one tick was placed on the clay and times were recorded on each behavior given a time limit of 5 minutes.
Results/Conclusions
Preliminary results on questing behaviors have been obtained using a glass rod. Interestingly, tick questing height can be grouped in three categories: 0-5 cm, 12-15 cm, and 19-30 cm. Results comparing different questing substrates will be analyzed using ANOVA. Understanding how ticks quest is beneficial because it may help us understand how they interact with their hosts. This plays a role in disease ecology because it could show how habitat composition may possibly influence BLT populations, making different habitat more or less likely to expose humans and key hosts to ticks. Knowing how the BLT quests on certain substrates will inform development of new control methods aimed to reduce the spread of disease vectored by this parasite.