tick presence is associated with abiotic but not biotic factors.

Species composition and densities of wild ungulate communities in Europe have changed over the last decades. As ungulates play an important role in the life-cycle of the tick species , these changes could affect both the life-cycle of and the transmission of tick-borne pathogens like () and . Due to morphological and behavioural differences among the ungulate species, these species might have different effects on the densities of questing , either directly through a bloodmeal or indirectly the impact of ungulates on rodent numbers the vegetation. In this study, we aimed to investigate these direct and indirect effects of five different ungulate species, fallow deer (), roe deer (), red deer (), moose (), and wild boar (), on the presence and abundance of ticks. In the summer of 2019, on 20 1 × 1 km transects in south-central Sweden that differed in ungulate community composition, we collected data on tick presence and abundance (by dragging a cloth), ungulate community composition (using camera traps), vegetation height (using the drop-disc method), temperature above field layer and rodent abundance (by snap-trapping). Using generalized linear mixed models we did not find any associations between vegetation height and tick presence/abundance or ungulate visitation frequencies, or between ungulate visitation frequencies and the presence/abundance of questing . The power of our analyses was, however, low due to very low tick and rodent numbers. We did find a negative association between adult ticks and air temperature, where we were more likely to find adult ticks if temperature in the field layer was lower. We conclude that more elaborate long-term studies are needed to elucidate the investigated associations. Such future studies should differentiate among the potential impacts of different ungulate species instead of treating all ungulate species as one group.