The ecology of the sheep tick, Ixodes ricinus L.

Extract

Since it is concerned with filling in certain details of a picture, long since sketched in outline, the new work in this paper permits only a somewhat disjointed summary.

From a study of Ixodes ricinus L. in nature, the main new facts emerging are:

(I) Unfed adults in a deep vegetation layer such as presented by rough hill or moorland pasture dominated by bents, heather or bracken. (i) Practically all inactive unfed ticks are in the underlying mat, and nearly all of these in the upper portion of the mat. This distribution does not change, summer or winter. (ii) When the tick is active its progression is practically confined to the vertical, i.e. between its niche in the mat and the vegetation tips immediately above. Random undirected movements due to certain circumstances may achieve a 0–8 in. (average 2 in.) change of position in the horizontal plane; but there is apparently no ruling urge to move in the horizontal plane. (iii) The unfed tick comes to the vegetation tips to await a host for only a limited time during the 3-month activity season. Commonly this amounts to about five periods of 4–5 days each if no host is forthcoming. Between the periods of activity it returns to the upper mat. If it stayed constantly at the tips its survival time would be much shorter than normal. (iv) From nymphs engorged in spring, adults emerge in autumn but remain inactive for a considerable period. About half of them may perish within the first 100 days after emergence. Survivors become active during the following March–June. Effective life ends when the tick, if still unfed, finally stops coming to the vegetation tips, the only position from which a host can normally be achieved. After emergence, the effective life of the unfed adult deprived of a host is less than one year; and the actual life is not much more than one year at best. Thus adults not finding a host in spring will be ineffective, i.e. die without reproducing before the next activity season.