International consortium on ticks and tick-borne deseases

• Research unit: EU RFP
• Project number: 01.0170

Key words (English)

Tick; tick-borne diseases; disease control; animal health

Alternative project number (English)

EU project number: ICA4-CT2000-30006

Research programs (English)

EU-programme: 5. Frame Research Programme - 2.3 Developing countries

Short description (English)

See abstract

Partners and International Organizations (English)

Coordinator: Universität Utrecht, Veterinärmedizin (NL)

Abstract (English)

The role of the Animal Physiology Laboratory, University of Neuchâtel in the ICTTD-2 Consortium is to identify chemicals that modify tick behaviours. We investigate chemosensory and behavioural adaptations governing host selection, host attachment, feeding and mating in ticks. All of these behaviours are crucial to the survival of these ectoparasites. Host volatiles that are perceived via olfactory receptors in chemosensilla on the first leg-pair of ticks permit them to detect host animals from a distance (McMahon &Guerin 2002), and we are developing attractants for ticks based on host odours using a servosphere apparatus (McMahon & Guerin, 2000a). Some tick species signal their presence on vertebrate hosts through the release of pheromones from exocrine glands. These species specific products serve to increase the apparency of a suitable host to conspecifics and so enhance encounter between the sexes for mating (McMahon & Guerin 2000 a and b; Guerin et al. 2000). Once on the host, constituents of sweat and skin lipids common to vertebrates affect the host attachment responses of ticks (Guerin et al. 2000). Receptor cells for these contact chemostimuli reside in chemosensilla on the legs and mouthparts, and these appendages are brought regularly into contact with the host's surface as the ectoparasite searches for an attachment site from which to feed (Kröber & Guerin 1999). These contact chemosensilla are also used for the perception of chemostimuli on the cuticle of conspecifics during mating in ticks (de Bruyne & Guerin 1998). More recently, we have found that faeces and faecal breakdown products are implicated in the aggregation responses of Ixodes ricinus, the Lyme disease vector in Europe, and that this may contribute to the high proportion of mated individuals of this species recorded on the ground (Grenacher et al. 2001).

References in databases (English)

Swiss Database: Euro-DB of the
State Secretariat for Education and Research
Hallwylstrasse 4
CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland
Tel. [phone]
Swiss Project-Number: 01.0170