The Relationship Between Soil Arthropods and the Overwinter Survival of Ixodes scapularis (Acari: Ixodidae) Under Manipulated Snow Cover

We explored the relationship between the diversity and abundance of the soil arthropod predator community and the overwinter survival of engorged larval Ixodes scapularis Say under variable snow cover in a hardwood forest. We reduced the snow cover over 30 soil core field microcosms, simulating pred...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of medical entomology 2016-01, Vol.53 (1), p.225-229
Main Authors: Burtis, J. C., Ostfeld, R. S., Yavitt, J. B., Fahey, T. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal populations
Animals
Arthropods
Biodiversity
Ixodes - physiology
Ixodes scapularis
Microcosms
overwinter
Overwintering
Predation
predator
Predators
SHORT COMMUNICATION
Snow
Snow cover
Snowpack
Soil - parasitology
Soil temperature
Soils
Survival
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Summary:We explored the relationship between the diversity and abundance of the soil arthropod predator community and the overwinter survival of engorged larval Ixodes scapularis Say under variable snow cover in a hardwood forest. We reduced the snow cover over 30 soil core field microcosms, simulating predicted changes in snow pack in the northeastern United States. An additional 29 microcosms were used as references with no snow pack manipulation. Each microcosm contained 15 engorged larval I. scapularis. We expected lower soil temperature without insulating snow cover to reduce tick survival. However, we observed that reduced snow cover had no effect, with 44.2 and 44.7% overwintering successfully in the reference and snow-removal plots, respectively. Increasing taxonomic family richness of arthropod predators and the total number of large (>1mm) arthropod predators significantly reduced the overwinter survivorship of I. scapularis within the microcosms. Small (
ISSN:0022-2585
1938-2928
DOI:10.1093/jme/tjv151