Fish and Wildlife Ecology

starting with diseases

Why should we care about wildlife diseases?

Humans and pets interact with wildlife

How do humans and pets interact with wildlife?

Increase in urban forests, encroachment of humans in rural areas, fragmentation of habitat, abundance of food in urban areas, and the removal of natural predators

Epidemiology

study of the distribution and determinants of disease

Disease determinants

Agent, host, environment

What causes Lyme Disease?

A bite from an infected ixodes tick (deer tick)

Effects of Lyme disease

Mild to severe cardiac, neurological, and musculoskeletal symptoms

Questing

An unfed tick seeks a host and attaches

Feeding

Attached tick feeds, engorges and drops off

Developing

Engorged tick develops to emerge as a questing tick or lays eggs if adult female

Adults have more ________ than larva and nymphs

restricted host range

For an unfed larva, transmission of disease is _______.

rare

What does a nymph need to pass on Lyme?

Infection from a host

Cofeeding

Pathogen transmission from infected to uninfected ticks that feed on the same host

What are the biggest dispersers of disease?

Humans