Tick Collections and Community Science
Throughout the course of this study, we received 94 responses from interested volunteers, who were all subsequently mailed a tick collection kit. We had 46 collection kits returned (48.9% return rate). Returned kits covered 19 states and 43 counties within the known range of I. scapularis . Only three of these counties overlapped with counties represented in our collaborative researcher-based samples. Community scientists were aware that this project focused on I. scapularis, but to simplify the process, we requested volunteers to collect all ticks encountered. This structure meant we received other species, life stages, and engorgement levels. Through community science collections we gathered 556 I. scapularis , and 53 unidentifiableIxodes spp. due to damage to the specimens (Supplemental Table 1).
Using our dual collection strategies, we gathered a total of 1,453 flat, undamaged I. scapularis adults from 25 states and 82 counties. Researcher-based collections provided 1,034 individual I. scapularis ticks (291 females, 743 males), and community scientists contributed 419 flat, undamaged I. scapularis (135 females, 284 males). By combining ticks from both collection strategies, we obtained 372 flat, adult I. scapularis from 33 counties in 22 states, with ≥7 individuals per county (except Owen Co., KY; n=4), from which we made 3RAD libraries. Nineteen ticks were excluded due to poor library quality, leaving a total of 353 ticks in our final dataset. The 33 counties represent the 33 putative populations in our dataset that are distributed across the four quadrants: Northeast (n=12), Upper Midwest (n=9), Southern Gulf (n=6), and Southeastern Atlantic (n=6) (Figure 1, Table 1).