DNA Isolation
All I. scapularis samples were given a unique identifier and bisected along the medial line. We retained one half of each tick in 70% ethanol, while the other half was used for DNA isolation using the Qiagen DNeasy Blood and Tissue kit (Hilden, Germany) (Ammazzalorso et al., 2015). DNA was quantified using a Qubit Fluorometer (Life Technologies, Inc., California, USA), and all DNA samples were normalized to 5-9ng/µL prior to library preparation.