{"id":2261,"date":"2009-12-16T13:00:56","date_gmt":"2009-12-16T17:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=2261"},"modified":"2009-12-16T13:00:56","modified_gmt":"2009-12-16T17:00:56","slug":"birds-may-expand-the-range-of-lyme-disease-and-its-vector-tick","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2009\/12\/16\/birds-may-expand-the-range-of-lyme-disease-and-its-vector-tick\/","title":{"rendered":"Birds may expand the range of Lyme disease and its vector tick"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lyme disease <\/span><\/a>(Borrelia burgdorferi<\/em>) is typically associated with mammals, but birds too can become infected by <\/span>black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis<\/em><\/span><\/a>), the principal vector of the pathogen.\u00a0 Moreover, birds may figure significantly in the range expansion of both the Lyme bacterium and black-legged ticks.\u00a0 So say Jory Brinkerhoff and colleagues of Yale University in a <\/span>paper<\/span><\/a> published today in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment<\/a><\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

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\"Black-legged<\/a><\/dt>\n
Black-legged adults and nymphs with straight pin. Photo: Jim Occi, BugPics, United States<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

As anyone who has been infected by the Lyme bacterium knows, it can cause any number of health problems including arthritis, nervous system abnormalities, and irregular heart rhythm.\u00a0 According to the <\/span>Centers for Disease Control and Prevention<\/span><\/a>, Lyme disease is the most common vector-borne disease in the United States, with the number of reported human infections in the U.S. doubling between 1992 and 2006.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

B. burgdorferi<\/em> occurs naturally in small mammalian hosts such as mice, squirrels, and shrews.\u00a0 Immature (larval and nymphal) ticks can become infected with the bacterium when they feed on these small mammals.\u00a0 During subsequent blood meals, infected nymphs and adult ticks can transmit the infection to other hosts, including humans.\u00a0 Interestingly, the white-tailed deer-though it plays an important role in maintaining tick populations-is, in fact, a \u201cdead end\u201d for the Lyme bacterium because deer blood is immune to infection from it.\u00a0 Enter the birds.<\/span>\n<\/p>\n

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\"Gray<\/a><\/dt>\n
Gray catbird (top) and hermit thrush (below) carrying engorged immature ticks (red arrows). Photo: L Doss.<\/span><\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Brinkerhoff and colleagues found published records indicating that at least 70 North American bird species are parasitized by immature black-legged ticks.\u00a0 I. scapularis<\/em> most consistently parasitizes thrushes, brown thrashers, wrens, and wood warblers.\u00a0 The authors estimate that as few as three individual birds are required to produce one infected black-legged tick.\u00a0 As they write in Frontiers<\/em>:<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0White-tailed deer are probably responsible for the range expansion of I. scapularis<\/em>, but they cannot transport B. burgdorferi<\/em>.\u00a0 Nomadic and post-breeding movements by birds, in addition to migration, facilitate the spread of B. burgdorferi<\/em> and may result in northern range expansion of the pathogen and vector from the Northeast and in southern expansion from the Midwest.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

What remains to be seen, say the authors, is whether the B. burgdorferi<\/em> strains that can infect birds can also infect mammals.\u00a0 If the answer is yes, they say, then the role of birds in the transmission of Lyme disease to humans could be profound.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An abstract of the article can be accessed here<\/a> and the complete paper is available here <\/a>(subscription required).\u00a0 Reporters interested in a copy of the paper or in speaking with the authors can contact Nadine Lymn at nadine@esa.org<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Brinkerhoff, R., Folsom-O\u2019Keefe, C., Tsao, K., & Diuk-Wasser, M. (2009). Do birds affect Lyme disease risk? Range expansion of the vector-borne pathogen Borrelia burgdorferi Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment<\/span> DOI: 10.1890\/090062<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lyme disease (Borrelia burgdorferi) is typically associated with mammals, but birds too can become infected by black-legged ticks (Ixodes scapularis), the principal vector of the pathogen.\u00a0 Moreover, birds may figure significantly in the range expansion of both the Lyme bacterium and black-legged ticks.\u00a0 So say Jory Brinkerhoff and colleagues of Yale University in a paper published today in Frontiers in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[421,422,423],"class_list":["post-2261","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-bird-parasites","tag-black-legged-tick","tag-lyme-disease"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/41"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2261\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}