Cascading effects of predator activity on tick-borne disease risk.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hofmeester TR
PROVIDER: S-EPMC5543215 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jul
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Publications
Cascading effects of predator activity on tick-borne disease risk.
Hofmeester Tim R TR Jansen Patrick A PA Wijnen Hendrikus J HJ Coipan Elena C EC Fonville Manoj M Prins Herbert H T HHT Sprong Hein H van Wieren Sipke E SE
Proceedings. Biological sciences 20170701 1859
Predators and competitors of vertebrates can in theory reduce the density of infected nymphs (DIN)-an often-used measure of tick-borne disease risk-by lowering the density of reservoir-competent hosts and/or the tick burden on reservoir-competent hosts. We investigated this possible indirect effect of predators by comparing data from 20 forest plots across the Netherlands that varied in predator abundance. In each plot, we measured the density of questing <i>Ixodes ricinus</i> nymphs (DON), DIN ...[more]
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