Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Prescribed Fire And Deer Ticks: A Management Method For The Primary Vector Of Lyme Disease In The Eastern United States, Shane M. Tripp

Graduate Dissertations and Theses

The United States is currently amid a public health crisis caused by the bacteria, Borrelia burgdorferi, that is responsible for Lyme disease. A deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, is the primary vector for these bacteria in the Eastern United States and its explosive population increase and range expansion in the past several decades is responsible for the rapid spread of the disease. Understanding the cause of this growth is dependent on the habitat characteristics that determine the deer tick’s abilities to survive, reproduce, and disperse into new areas and the changes that may have released it from historic limits. Fire suppression …