title: Identifying requirements for the invasion of a tick species and tick-borne pathogen through TICKSIM.
abstract: Ticks and tick-borne diseases have been on the move throughout the United State over the past twenty years. We use an agent-based model, TICKSIM, to identify the key parameters that determine the success of invasion of the tick and if that is successful, the succees of the tick-borne pathogen. We find that if an area has competent hosts, an initial population of ten ticks is predicted to always establish a new population. The establishment of the tick-borne pathogen depends on three parameters: the initial prevalence in the ten founding ticks, the probability that a tick infects the longer-lived hosts and the probability that a tick infects the shorter-lived hosts. These results indicate that the transmission rates to hosts in the newly established area can be used to predict the potential risk of disease to humans.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Old Dominion University, 110 MGB, Norfolk, Virginia 23529, USA. hgaff@odu.edu
authors.forename: Holly
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gaff
authors.forename: Robyn
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Nadolny
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001096:Arachnid Vectors / Q000382:microbiology; D018469:Ehrlichia chaffeensis / Q000472:pathogenicity; D016873:Ehrlichiosis / Q000209:etiology / Q000635:transmission; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006801:Humans; D055641:Mathematical Concepts; D008954:Models, Biological; D011157:Population Dynamics; D049490:Systems Biology; D017282:Tick-Borne Diseases / Q000209:etiology* / Q000635:transmission; D013987:Ticks / Q000382:microbiology*