Ticks

I am broadly interested in ‘integrated tick management’. More specifically, surveillance strategies, habitat manipulations and the development of microbial biopesticides for tick management, particularly, species of entomopathogenic fungi in the Beauveria and Metarhizium genera. My research projects have focused extensively on winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) that affect moose populations across North America and blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) that vector a diversity of disease-causing pathogens. Check out VT-TIC (Vermont Tick Information Center) for current tick research projects from the “Integrated Tick Management” Program at the University of Vermont (UVM).

  • Winter tick adult females drop from their moose hosts in late spring.

  • Tick sampling.

  • Winter tick larvae questing for a host in clusters of thousands in autumn.

  • Blacklegged tick (adult female).

  • Winter tick larva infected with a pathogenic fungus.

  • Adult, female, blacklegged ticks embedded into a deer carcass.

  • The underside of an adult, female bat tick.

  • An adult, female winter tick searches for refuge after falling onto snow in early April.

  • Winter ticks infesting a moose carcass.

Selected Press:

Ticks Endanger Vermont Ag Workers. New Studies Could Help. Seven Days by Anne Wallace Allen, 10/2/2024

Tick-Borne Diseases On the Rise in New England, How Will It Affect Farms? Lancaster Farming by Tom Venesky, 7/27/2024

Why hunt moose to save them from winter ticks? Experts see few other ways to stem the grisly pests. Community News Service, UVM. 5/6/2024

Scientists Seek Solutions to the Ever-Growing Problem of Ticks — and the Diseases They Carry. Seven Days. 5/17/2023

USFW Service Supports Winter Tick Research Using Fungi to Decrease Tick Populations. 2/8/2023

Sullivan, C.F & M. Skinner. The clock’s still ticking for TICKS as winter approaches. The Dirt (VNLA). Fall Issue.

Hunting moose to help save them: some states are giving it a shot. NPR All Things Considered. 3/17/2022

Bat tick found in Vermont for the first time. (The Pesticide Applicator Report - Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets and UVM Extension). Spring 2022. Vol.23, Issue1.

Tick populations are increasing and so is Vermont’s Lyme disease rate; Here’s what to know. (Burlington Free Press). 2/24/2022

Bat Ticks Discovered in Vermont by UVM Entomologists. UVM CALS What’s Buzzing. 2/18/2022

Vermont sees its first bat tick. (WCAX). 2/10/2022

Fungi may kill winter ticks – and help moose survive. (The Outside Story, Northern Woodlands). 1/17/2022

Small fungus formulations could make big difference to protect moose from winter ticks (Morris Animal Foundation). 8/6/2021

Fungi for management of moose ticks (American Wildlife Conservation Foundation News). 7/1/2020

UVM researcher seeks to target moose-killing ticks with fungi. (VT Digger). 10/16/2019

UVM research on tick-killing fungus could protect moose from deadly 'tick bombs'. (Vermont Public Radio). 10/22/2019

Naturally occurring fungi could curb moose tick plague, UVM entomologists find. (UVM Today). 10/9/2019


Next

BioPesticide Development (Entomopathogenic Fungi)