Location: Zoonotic and Emerging Disease Research
Project Number: 3022-32000-027-031-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Jun 15, 2025
End Date: May 31, 2028
Objective:
Plan a series of field and lab activities to grow and enrich knowledge of ticks and tick-borne pathogens across Kansas. Specifically, we will sample ticks via a multipronged sampling effort that will capture questing ticks as they seek new hosts and vectors feeding on vertebrate hosts. A particular focus will be on western regions of the state, where tick densities are lower, yet tick-borne pathogens are transmitted nonetheless; western Kansas also represents a significant knowledge gap regarding ticks and tick-borne pathogens. This project will take specific and concrete steps towards improving knowledge of ticks and tick-borne pathogens in western Kansas and statewide.
As such, we have identified three objectives for this project. Each of these objectives will involve a significant investment of project time and effort.
Update and improve knowledge of tick and host distributions across the state of Kansas, with a focus on information-poor regions, such as western Kansas.
Characterize pathogen diversity among ticks and their hosts across Kansas.
Develop a first view of host-vector-pathogen networks across Kansas, as they relate to tick-borne pathogens.
Approach:
Samples will be collected at six localities spatially stratified by geography and environment across Kansas. Three sites will be visited twice in the first year, in two different seasons (e.g., April-June and September-November). Three different sites will be sampled similarly during the second year. Sites will be selected based on environmental features and in collaboration with local land-owners.
Ticks will be sampled from the environment and from their mammal hosts. Environmental sampling will involve flagging, dragging, and CO2 traps. Small mammals will be captured using live- and lethal- traps, nets, and firearms, per state permits. External parasites, including fleas, ticks, mites, and lice, will be extracted by fumigation and/or detailed visual inspection, and preserved in ethanol and/or DNA/RNA Shield for downstream analysis. Specimens will be deposited in the collections of the Cooperator. Each specimen will be assigned a catalog number, with associated digital data (e.g., locality, GPS coordinate, date, sex, age, etc.) served online through the Specify museum database and major biodiversity web portals. Mammals will be identified to species level by expert curators; ticks will be identified by expert consultants.