1.a. Tick Collections and Community Science
Large-scale sampling can pose many challenges for researchers and incur
substantial personnel costs. By employing a mixed collection strategy
across the known geographic range of I. scapularis, our study was
able to obtain broad sampling coverage without excessive cost or time
input. Obtaining tick samples from research scientists provided
consistent collections from a variety of locations and using their
collections for this study provides a model for leveraging the efforts
of routine tick surveillance programs into fundamental investigative
research. Working with community scientists for sample collection in
areas without a strong research presence had challenges. For example,
not having control over which counties were targeted in the collections;
some collection kits being returned with few ticks making it difficult
to have a full population represented; and the added responsibility of
keeping in contact with volunteers throughout the collection period.
However, community scientists allowed us to scale-up the populations
sampled significantly from previous I. scapularis population
genetics studies and provided an opportunity to increase awareness about
the risk of tickborne disease in many communities.
Our dataset is not balanced regarding sex ratios or populations per
region. We have more male than female samples, however, completing
analyses with a single sex did not produce significantly different
results, and keeping both sexes represented allowed more populations to
be analyzed. Tick collection efforts are higher in the North, especially
the Northeast, due to high Lyme disease incidence and public health
surveillance, making samples more readily available. The unevenness in
sampling location does not appear to impact results, because all trends
hold even with sub-selected populations to make balanced representations
of the quadrants (analyses not shown).