Don’t go chasing waterfalls: Increased collection of medically relevant ticks further away from hiking trails in the Piedmont of North Carolina, USA

Hiking is a popular recreational activity in North Carolina; however, this activity may expose people to ticks and tick-borne pathogens given the lack of knowledge on how ticks are distributed on and near trails. When compounded with our increasingly changing environmental landscape, it becomes even more important that we understand tick distributions in landscapes that are frequented by humans. Our study tested the hypothesis that ticks are more likely to be encountered when moving away from trails by measuring differences in relative abundance and odds of collecting ticks at various distances off trails. We tested four distances (middle of trail, edge of trail, 5m, 20m), as well as an on-trail and off-trail grouping. We found that in most of our generalized linear mixed models, significantly more ticks for all species and stages were collected and were more likely to be collected at our 20m and 5m sampling distances rather than directly on or adjacent to trails, and significantly more were collected during off-trail collections. Mean comparisons of A. americanum collected at each sampling distance revealed significantly more larvae and nymphs were collected at 20m than middle and edge of trail, but not for adults. These results generally demonstrate the importance of utilizing established trails when hiking to decrease tick-borne disease risk, especially in the early summer, and should be communicated to the public as a recommendation on reducing tick-encounter risk.