ArticlePLoS computational biology2014
Pattern of tick aggregation on mice: larger than expected distribution tail enhances the spread of tick-borne pathogens.
Article in PLoS computational biology, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- MicroRNA-34-5p regulates the expression of ecdysteroid receptor (ECR) in the process of salivary gland degeneration of ticks.Parasites & vectors · 2025Article
- Transcriptome reveals the roles and potential mechanisms of CeRNA in the regulation of salivary gland development in the tickFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2025Article
- Parasite infestation patterns differ between ticks and chigger mites on two rodent host species in Taiwan.Experimental & applied acarology · 2024Article
- Towards modelling tick-virus interactions using the weakly pathogenicFrontiers in cellular and infection microbiology · 2024Article
- An eco-epidemiological modeling approach to investigate dilution effect in two different tick-borne pathosystems.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2022Article
- ATG5 is instrumental in the transition from autophagy to apoptosis during the degeneration of tick salivary glands.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Article
- Initiator and executioner caspases in salivary gland apoptosis of Rhipicephalus haemaphysaloides.Parasites & vectors · 2020Article
- Incorporating tick feeding behaviour into RTheoretical population biology · 2020Article
- Pareto rules for malaria super-spreaders and super-spreading.Nature communications · 2019Article
- Hosts mobility and spatial spread of Rickettsia rickettsii.PLoS computational biology · 2018Article
- Examining the patterns and dynamics of species abundance distributions in succession of forest communities by model selection.PloS one · 2018Article
- Modelling farm-to-farm disease transmission through personnel movements: from visits to contacts, and back.Scientific reports · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The spread of tick-borne pathogens represents an important threat to human and animal health in many parts of Eurasia. Here, we analysed a 9-year time series of Ixodes ricinus ticks feeding on Apodemus flavicollis mice (main reservoir-competent host for tick-borne encephalitis, TBE) sampled in Trentino (Northern Italy). The tail of the distribution of the number of ticks per host was fitted by three theoretical distributions: Negative Binomial (NB), Poisson-LogNormal (PoiLN), and Power-Law (PL). The fit with theoretical distributions indicated that the tail of the tick infestation pattern on mice is better described by the PL distribution. Moreover, we found that the tail of the distribution significantly changes with seasonal variations in host abundance. In order to investigate the effect of different tails of tick distribution on the invasion of a non-systemically transmitted pathogen, we simulated the transmission of a TBE-like virus between susceptible and infective ticks using a stochastic model. Model simulations indicated different outcomes of disease spreading when considering different distribution laws of ticks among hosts. Specifically, we found that the epidemic threshold and the prevalence equilibria obtained in epidemiological simulations with PL distribution are a good approximation of those observed in simulations feed by the empirical distribution. Moreover, we also found that the epidemic threshold for disease invasion was lower when considering the seasonal variation of tick aggregation.
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