ArticleParasites & vectors2018
Landscape structure affects the prevalence and distribution of a tick-borne zoonotic pathogen.
Article in Parasites & vectors, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed.
- Host diversity and landscape structure drive genospecies-specific Lyme disease risk across Eurasia.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Surveillance of tick-borne pathogens in ticks collected from Swiss residents.Parasites & vectors · 2026Article
- Identification and mapping of potential and highly likely vectors for selected vector-borne diseases in the EU and neighbouring countries.EFSA journal. European Food Safety Authority · 2026Article
- Habitat-Specific Patterns of Tick-Borne Pathogens in Urban and Suburban Landscapes.Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Article
- Exploring Metrics of Biological Diversity to Better Predict and Respond to Emerging Diseases.Integrative and comparative biology · 2025Review
- Geographical Distribution and Prevalence of Borrelia Genospecies in Eurasian Ticks.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Positive Molecular Detection ofEcology and evolution · 2025Article
- Ticks and tick-borne diseases in the northern hemisphere affecting humans.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Review
- Temporal Changes in Tick-Borne Pathogen Prevalence in Questing Ixodes ricinus Across Different Habitats in the North-Eastern Italian Alps.MicrobiologyOpen · 2024Article
- The roles of habitat isolation, landscape connectivity and host community in tick-borne pathogen ecology.Royal Society open science · 2024Article
- Ticks and Tick-Borne Pathogens in Popular Recreational Areas in Tallinn, Estonia: The Underestimated Risk of Tick-Borne Diseases.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- An Agenda for Research of Uncovered Epidemiological Patterns of Tick-Borne Pathogens Affecting Human Health.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Meta-analysis: A useful tool to assess infection prevalence and disease ecology ofParasite epidemiology and control · 2022Article
- Drivers of the Ectoparasite Community and Co-Infection Patterns in Rural and Urban Burrowing Owls.Biology · 2022Article
- Challenging a host-pathogen paradigm: Susceptibility to chytridiomycosis is decoupled from genetic erosion.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2022Article
- Is composition of vertebrates an indicator of the prevalence of tick-borne pathogens?Infection ecology & epidemiology · 2022Article
- The Role of Ticks in the Emergence ofMicroorganisms · 2021Review
- Emerging zoonotic diseases originating in mammals: a systematic review of effects of anthropogenic land-use change.Mammal review · 2020Review
- Sampling scale and season influence the observed relationship between the density of deer and questing Ixodes ricinus nymphs.Parasites & vectors · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLandscape structure can affect pathogen prevalence and persistence with consequences for human and animal health. Few studies have examined how reservoir host species traits may interact with landscape structure to alter pathogen communities and dynamics. Using a landscape of islands and mainland sites we investigated how natural landscape fragmentation affects the prevalence and persistence of the zoonotic tick-borne pathogen complex Borrelia burgdorferi (sensu lato), which causes Lyme borreliosis. We hypothesized that the prevalence of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) would be lower on islands compared to the mainland and B. afzelii, a small mammal specialist genospecies, would be more affected by isolation than bird-associated B. garinii and B. valaisiana and the generalist B. burgdorferi (sensu stricto).
methodsQuesting (host-seeking) nymphal I. ricinus ticks (n = 6567) were collected from 12 island and 6 mainland sites in 2011, 2013 and 2015 and tested for B. burgdorferi (s.l.). Deer abundance was estimated using dung transects.
resultsThe prevalence of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) was significantly higher on the mainland (2.5%, 47/1891) compared to island sites (0.9%, 44/4673) (P < 0.01). While all four genospecies of B. burgdorferi (s.l.) were detected on the mainland, bird-associated species B. garinii and B. valaisiana and the generalist genospecies B. burgdorferi (s.s.) predominated on islands.
conclusionWe found that landscape structure influenced the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen, with a lower prevalence detected among island sites compared to the mainland. This was mainly due to the significantly lower prevalence of small mammal-associated B. afzelii. Deer abundance was not related to pathogen prevalence, suggesting that the structure and dynamics of the reservoir host community underpins the observed prevalence patterns, with the higher mobility of bird hosts compared to small mammal hosts leading to a relative predominance of the bird-associated genospecies B. garinii and generalist genospecies B. burgdorferi (s.s.) on islands. In contrast, the lower prevalence of B. afzelii on islands may be due to small mammal populations there exhibiting lower densities, less immigration and stronger population fluctuations. This study suggests that landscape fragmentation can influence the prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen, dependent on the biology of the reservoir host.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.