In a warmer world, ticks that spread disease are arriving earlier, expanding their ranges

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-02/cioe-iaw021815.php

Public Release: 18-Feb-2015
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

(Millbrook, NY) In the northeastern United States, warmer spring temperatures are leading to shifts in the emergence of the blacklegged ticks that carry Lyme disease and other tick-borne pathogens. At the same time, milder weather is allowing ticks to spread into new geographic regions. Findings were published this week in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B dedicated to climate change and vector-borne diseases.

Conclusions on blacklegged tick emergence were based on nineteen years of data collected at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY. Located in Dutchess County, the 2,000-acre research campus sits at an epicenter for tick-borne disease. Cary Institute ecologist Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld and his team have amassed one of the most comprehensive field studies on how environmental conditions influence vector-borne disease risk.

Ostfeld, a co-author on the paper, comments, "Nearly two decades of data revealed climate warming trends correlated with earlier spring feeding by nymphal ticks, sometimes by as much as three weeks. If this persists, we will need to move Lyme Disease Awareness Month from May to April."

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