Can native tick fauna be used as an indicator of cattle fever tick habitat suitability and seasonal activity in Southern Texas?

Cattle fever ticks (CFT) are one of the most important economic pests of livestock worldwide, causing billions of dollars in damages to livestock producers annually. Little is known about livestock interactions with CFT and its ecology in sylvatic systems. Locating CFT off-host can be challenging. The use of dry ice traps, a common tool for tick collection, is not effective for CFT detection, and collection via flagging/dragging tends to yield low numbers of CFT. The collection of native ticks is simpler, and using these collection methods yields greater than 500 native ticks to one CFT. Here we present information comparing CFT collections in experimentally infested pastures to wild-collected ticks in southern Texas. Controlled pasture experiments were conducted in 2m² plots within an experimentally infested pasture at Moore Air Base, Edinburg, TX. Field collections were made using flags, drags, and dry ice traps in scrub thorn habitats. We will explore how variables such as temperature, humidity and time of day/season may affect the ability to collect native ticks in the field, and CFT in a quasi-natural environment. We aim to identify the best methods for tick collection in southern Texas and to determine if data garnered from native ticks can be informative for CFT. Finally, we will discuss how these findings align with reported instances of CFT from cattle by the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication program and how we can apply this knowledge to inform regulating entities on specific cues that may be used for finding and eradicating the CFT.