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Can Prescribed Fire Reduce Tick Parasitism Of Birds?, Leslie A. Sterling, Kim Medley, Katie Westby, Solný Adalsteinsson
Can Prescribed Fire Reduce Tick Parasitism Of Birds?, Leslie A. Sterling, Kim Medley, Katie Westby, Solný Adalsteinsson
Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters
Tick-borne diseases spread through enzootic transmission cycles that often involve ticks parasitizing bird hosts. Some avian species are competent reservoirs, amplifying the pathogens that cause tick-borne illnesses in humans. Prescribed burns in forests have the potential to reduce tick-borne disease risk if they limit interactions between ticks and infectious wildlife hosts. Although prescribed burns are increasingly being used for a variety of habitat management purposes, little is known about how they affect tick-host interactions. We hypothesize that if prescribed fires reduce tick abundance, then birds in burned forest plots will host fewer ticks than birds in unburned forest plots. Experimental …