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ARS Home » Plains Area » Kerrville, Texas » Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory » LAPRU » Research » Research Project #430412

Research Project: Adapting TickBot Technology to Support Efforts by Appropriated Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Research Project

Location: Livestock Arthropod Pests Research

Project Number: 3094-32000-042-004-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement

Start Date: Apr 1, 2016
End Date: Dec 31, 2019

Objective:
Adapt the Tick-Bot technology as a method to reduce the cost of pasture quarantine by detecting and controlling cattle fever ticks infesting premises in south Texas.

Approach:
Initiate tests of TickBot with appropriate acaricides for reduction of larval cattle fever tick population in a controlled pasture. Careful measurements will be taken to assess any potential environmental impact of this intervention on non-target species. Also test the technology in the field for ability to detect and control infested premises by using the TickBot as a detection instrument to map relationships between vegetation and larval presence. Test relationships using GIS mapping and further ground truthing. This will serve as basis to determine relationship between white-tailed deer density and cattle fever ticks populations. Complete tests by deploying the TickBot at the livestock-wildlife interface in an effort to disrupt translocation of cattle fever ticks from white-tailed deer to livestock.