Ernest Teo is a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) postdoctoral fellow at Hokkaido University, Japan. Prior to his postdoctoral fellowship, he was a PhD candidate at The University of Queensland, Australia, where he studied the effects of climate on the abundance and geographic distribution of Australian ticks, most notably, Ixodes holocyclus, the eastern paralysis tick. Nowadays, Ernest is more preoccupied with ticks that have a much wider geographic distribution, as well as the disease ecology of their zoonotic diseases (although he still has a soft spot for anything I. holocyclus-related).
Talk Title: “What allows ticks to tick? The effects of climate on the geographic distribution and the abundance of ticks – extended.”
Ernest Teo, Hokkaido University
Abstract: What allows a tick to tick? There are various factors as to why ticks tick; one of these factors is climate. Andrewartha and Birch (1954) regarded the problem of the abundance and the geographic distribution of species to be two sides of the same coin, and also proposed that the weather accounted for the abundance of thrips and grasshoppers in South Australia – thus, could the weather, and hence the climate account for both the distribution and abundance of species? For ticks in particular, more and more studies have revealed that the weather, and hence the climate, may affect ticks in more ways than two. Apart from macro effects such as geographic distributions and abundance of ticks, climate has also been shown to affect ticks at the micro-scale (e.g. activity of individual ticks), as well as at many levels in between. In the past, such studies have mostly been observational, correlational, and theoretical. With advancements in technologies allowing individuals to track, consolidate, store, access, and subsequently use big data however, sophisticated methodologies and tools to project the distributions of species and to account for their abundances have been increasingly available. In this seminar, I intend to discuss how climate allows a tick to tick; deliberate on the possible effects of climate change on ticks; and highlight how we can use tools to further our understanding of the distribution and abundance of ticks.
Xavier Barton is a PhD candidate at Murdoch University, Western Australia, affiliated with Cryptick Lab and the Harry Butler Institute. His research focuses on investigating the population structure of ticks from a systematic perspective. Specifically, his current project is using ddRADseq to analyse the population genetic structures of Amblyomma triguttatum (ornate kangaroo tick) and other significant species. Xavier integrates this genetic data with environmental and microbial information to gain a comprehensive understanding of these species in their ecosystems. His research aims to provide further insight into how ticks and tick-borne pathogens are spread throughout a landscape, particularly in Australia where a significant knowledge gap is present.
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