Donaldson Taylor G, Pèrez de León Adalberto A, Li Andrew Y, Castro-Arellano Ivan, Wozniak Edward, Boyle William K, Hargrove Reid, Wilder Hannah K, Kim Hee J, Teel Pete D, Lopez Job E
Department of Entomology, Texas A&M AgriLife Research, College Station, Texas, United States of America.
United States Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service, Knipling-Bushland U.S. Livestock Insects Research Laboratory and Veterinary Pest Genomics Center, Kerrville, Texas, United States of America.
PLoS Negl Trop Dis. 2016 Feb 1;10(2):e0004383. doi: 10.1371/journal.pntd.0004383. eCollection 2016 Feb.
Ornithodoros turicata is a veterinary and medically important argasid tick that is recognized as a vector of the relapsing fever spirochete Borrelia turicatae and African swine fever virus. Historic collections of O. turicata have been recorded from Latin America to the southern United States. However, the geographic distribution of this vector is poorly understood in relation to environmental variables, their hosts, and consequently the pathogens they transmit.
Localities of O. turicata were generated by performing literature searches, evaluating records from the United States National Tick Collection and the Symbiota Collections of Arthropods Network, and by conducting field studies. Maximum entropy species distribution modeling (Maxent) was used to predict the current distribution of O. turicata. Vertebrate host diversity and GIS analyses of their distributions were used to ascertain the area of shared occupancy of both the hosts and vector.
Our results predicted previously unrecognized regions of the United States with habitat that may maintain O. turicata and could guide future surveillance efforts for a tick capable of transmitting high-consequence pathogens to human and animal populations.
图氏钝缘蜱是一种对兽医和医学都很重要的锐缘蜱，被认为是回归热螺旋体图氏疏螺旋体和非洲猪瘟病毒的传播媒介。历史上，图氏钝缘蜱的采集记录范围从拉丁美洲到美国南部。然而，关于这种传播媒介相对于环境变量、其宿主以及因此它们传播的病原体的地理分布，人们了解得并不多。
通过进行文献检索、评估来自美国国家蜱类收藏和节肢动物网络共生生物收藏的记录以及开展实地研究，确定了图氏钝缘蜱的分布地点。利用最大熵物种分布模型（Maxent）预测图氏钝缘蜱的当前分布。通过脊椎动物宿主多样性及其分布的地理信息系统分析，确定宿主和传播媒介共同占据的区域。
我们的研究结果预测了美国以前未被认识到的、可能有适合图氏钝缘蜱生存的栖息地的区域，这可以为未来对这种能够将高致病性病原体传播给人类和动物群体的蜱类的监测工作提供指导。
