title: Morphological differentiation of Ixodes persulcatus and I. ricinus hybrid larvae in experiment and under natural conditions.
abstract: The objective of the study was detection of hybrid larvae in Ixodes persulcatus and Ixodes ricinus cohabitation sites. To this end, the following three tasks were solved: interspecies crossing of ticks, evaluation of typical morphological signs of the hybrid larvae, and analysis of collected specimens from sites of sympatry. Under experimental conditions, hybrid larvae of I. persulcatus (female) and I. ricinus (male) were obtained that differed from the parental species by the size of setae on the scutum and alloscutum. Discriminant analysis yielded 87.5% classification accuracy for the priory set groups of I. persulcatus, I. ricinus, and hybrids. Of 88 hybrid larvae, 13 (15%) were classified as I. persulcatus and 4 (5%) as I. ricinus. We measured larvae of Ixodes ticks (n=141) collected from small mammals in 1950-1970 in Karelia in cohabitation sites of these species that were previously classified as I. persulcatus or I. ricinus. According to the results of discriminant analysis, 31 larvae (22%) were classified as hybrids with probability p≥0.52; for 10 larvae (7%), the probability of placement to the hybrid group was >0.95.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology of Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences (IB KarRC RAS), Petrozavodsk, Russia. Electronic address: sbugmyr@mail.ru.
authors.forename: Sergey V
authors.initials: SV
authors.lastname: Bugmyrin
authors.affiliation: Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Oxana A
authors.initials: OA
authors.lastname: Belova
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology of Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences (IB KarRC RAS), Petrozavodsk, Russia.
authors.forename: Eugeniy P
authors.initials: EP
authors.lastname: Ieshko
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biology of Karelian Research Centre, Russian Academy of Sciences (IB KarRC RAS), Petrozavodsk, Russia.
authors.forename: Liubov A
authors.initials: LA
authors.lastname: Bespyatova
authors.affiliation: Chumakov Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitides, Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: Galina G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Karganova
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002678:Chimera; D005260:Female; D018884:Ixodes / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D007814:Larva / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000145:classification; D008297:Male
keywords: Hybrids; I. ricinus; Ixodes persulcatus; Larvae; Morphology; Ticks