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Student 10-Minute Presentation

Medical, Urban, and Veterinary Entomology

Student

Student Competition

Grad 10-min Competition: MUVE, Medical and Veterinary Entomology and Vector Biology and Management

Tick control by the pros: Effectiveness of PMPs' practices to suppress nymphal Ixodes scapularis populations in backyards

Monday, November 11, 2024
11:42 AM – 11:54 AM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 221 A, PCC
Oral Presentation Student Competition
Lyme disease is the most prevalent vector borne disease in the United States, with CDC estimating 476,000 cases being diagnosed and treated each year. hereas mosquito control falls upon organizations such as tax funded abatement districts, tick control has no such community wide infrastructure. This leaves the burden of tick control on the shoulders of the individual property owner. As a result, many private pest control firms have started to offer tick targeted services, but with no standard operating procedure, there are multiple acaricides and application techniques being used across Lyme hotspots. We evaluated two vector control services of a multinational pest control company for their effectiveness in suppressing nymphal black-legged tick populations.

The first service, which is marketed to target mosquitoes only, utilized a backpack mister to apply a solution of Suspend Polyzone (Envu) as a barrier treatment. The second service, marketed to target both mosquitoes & ticks, combined the prior service with an application of Deltagard G (Envu). Both services decreased the abundance of nymphal black-legged ticks in backyards by 82-94% as compared to untreated properties. Tick density was reduced in woods, lawn, and ecotone transition zone. Overall, we observed a ≥50% reduction in the proportion of homes where any nymphs were collected. The level of suppression achieved by the mosquito only service was surprising, and warrants further investigation.