Sunday, March 30, 2003

local influence(s) on lyme disease

This released 3/27: Forest fragmentation may increase Lyme disease risk:
Patchy woods—common in cities and suburbia, and even in rural areas—may have more Lyme disease-carrying ticks, which could increase risk of the disease in these forest remnants...The researchers found that smaller forest fragments had more infected ticks...

The study was done in the northeast, and I don't know much about how our lyme spreads (deer? mice?) (in NE they said it was mice) but given that deer are also "edge" species, ie do best with patchy habitat, I'd expect their result to be applicable here too.

This is older, but presumably still true:
[Western Fence] Lizard May Act As Lyme Disease Panacea (contact with the lizards' blood killed the lyme spirochaetes in the feeding ticks)

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