Lyme Disease Analysis

In recent years, Lyme disease has been garnering increasing amounts of interest in Canada as numbers of reported human cases across Canada increase over ten-fold between 2005 and 2013 (Government of Canada 2015, Kulkarni et al. 2015). It has been repeatedly proposed that the emergence of Lyme disease in Canada resulted primarily from the range expansions of both the main disease vector (the black–legged tick) and the primary disease reservoir host (white-footed mouse) into the region (Heon et al. 2009, Ostfeld and Brunner 2015). The two major driving forces believed to be modulating these species range expansion are recent changes in both the climate (Legér et al. 2013) as well as the landscape (Margos et al 2011, Simon et al. 2014). In this …show more content…
burgdorferi prevalence, [2] determined the level of interactions and co-dependency between both ticks and mice with regards to movement across the landscape by comparing their population genetic structures, [3] quantified the effects of landscape and habitat variables on species densities/abundances, and [4] modelled how winter climate variables predicts species occurrence probability in each habitat patch. The resulting information were combined in a structural equation model that allowed us to estimate the relative effect climate and landscape have on Lyme disease infection risks in the form of estimated B. burgdorferi prevalence through their influence on the disease host and …show more content…
Our climate-niche models revealed that white-footed mouse and black-legged tick occurrence probabilities across our study area differs substantially (see Figures 2B and C).While the white-footed mouse has an evenly high occurrence probability across our study area (Figure 2B), tick occurrence probabilities are more constrained (Figure 2C). The results are unsurprising as the effect of climate on the exothermic tick vector is undeniable (Legér et al. 2013). Warmer temperatures, greater relative humidity, and steady winter temperatures are most likely to promote tick developmental rates and survival (Wu et al. 2013, Vail and Smith 2002). However, since the white-footed mouse is endothermic, any effects by climate on the species will be buffered by physiological regulations. Nonetheless, climatic conditions can still indirectly determine white-footed mouse distribution and demography by influencing habitat suitability (Legér et al. 2013, Ostfeld and Brunner

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