Publications

etiologic agent of lyme disease, borrelia burgdorferi, detected in ticks (acari: ixodidae) collected at a focus in alabama.	the study was conducted at sites of known transmission of borrelia burgdorferi in east central alabama. the objectives were to determine species of ticks present at these sites, their host associations, and species of ticks and small mammals naturally infected with b. burgdorferi. a total of 451 hosts were examined for ticks, including cotton mice, peromyscus gossypinus (le conte); cotton rats, sigmodon hispidus say & ord; southern short-tailed shrews, blarina carolinensis (bachman); house mice, ...	1991	1941933
short-tailed shrews as reservoirs of the agents of lyme disease and human babesiosis.	to determine whether short-tailed shrews (blarina brevicauda) serve as reservoir hosts for the lyme disease spirochete (borrelia burgdorferi) and the agent of human babesiosis (babesia microti), we examined nymphal ticks that had fed as larvae on shrews collected from 3 enzootic sites in coastal massachusetts for evidence of infection by either or both of these agents. xenodiagnosis indicated that 11 of 14 shrews were infected by b. burgdorferi. one of 3 piroplasm-infected shrews also infected t ...	1990	2213411
isolation of the lyme disease spirochete from mammals in minnesota.	lyme disease spirochetes were isolated from the kidneys of two peromyscus spp. trapped in minnesota in september and october 1983. no spirochetes were isolated from white-tailed deer (odocoileus virginianus), red backed voles (clethrionomys gapperi), or shrews (sorexy cinereus and blarina brevicauda). this is the first report of the isolation of the lyme disease spirochete from the midwestern united states and isolations from these animals, which were free of ticks, suggest that the lyme disease ...	1985	4001130
Molting success of Ixodes scapularis varies among individual blood meal hosts and species.	The blacklegged tick (Ixodes scapularis) is an important vector of emerging human pathogens. It has three blood-feeding stages, as follows: larva, nymph, and adult. Owing to inefficient transovarial transmission, at least for the Lyme disease agent (Borrelia burgdorferi), larval ticks rarely hatch infected, but they can acquire infection during their larval blood meal. Nymphal ticks are primarily responsible for transmitting pathogens to hosts, including humans. The transition from uninfected ho ...	2011	21845946
quantifying dilution and amplification in a community of hosts for tick-borne pathogens.	recent controversy over whether biodiversity reduces disease risk (dilution effect) has focused on the ecology of lyme disease, a tick-borne zoonosis. a criticism of the dilution effect is that increasing host species richness might amplify disease risk, assuming that total host abundance, and therefore feeding opportunities for ticks, increase with species richness. in contrast, a dilution effect is expected when poor quality hosts for ticks and pathogens (dilution hosts) divert tick blood meal ...	2016	27209790