A survey of reptile-associated ticks and their infection status with severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus was conducted to determine the relative abundance and distribution among lizards, skinks, and snakes in the Republic of Korea (ROK). In total, 132 reptiles, including 49 lizards (two species), 15 skinks (one species), and 68 snakes (eight species) were collected. In total, 84 ixodid ticks belonging to two genera (Ixodes and Amblyomma) were collected from 28/132 (21.2%) lizards, skinks, and snakes. Ixodes nipponensis Kitaoka & Saito was only collected from lizards and skinks, while Amblyomma testudinarium Koch was only collected from snakes. Takydromus wolteri had the highest tick index (0.7; total number ticks/total number collected hosts) among lizards and skinks, while Rhabdophis tigrinus had the highest tick index (2.2) among the snakes. Ixodes nipponensis larvae and nymphs accounted for 11.1% and 88.9%, respectively, of all ticks collected from lizards and skinks, while only A. testudinarium nymphs were collected from snakes. Nymphs of both species of ticks were collected from lizards and skinks from April to October, while I. nipponensis larvae were collected only from September to October. Ixodes nipponensis larvae and nymphs were preferentially attached to the lateral trunk (83.3%) and the foreleg axillae (16.7%) of lizards and skinks. SFTS virus was detected in both I. nipponensis and A. testudinarium collected from lizards and snakes. Phylogenetic analysis of SFTS viruses of ticks collected from two lizards and one snake demonstrated close relationships with SFTS virus strains observed from humans and ticks in the ROK, China, and Japan. These results implicate lizards and snakes as potential hosts of SFTS virus.

Abstract:The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of education and R&D investment on regional economic growth in South Korea. We develop a simultaneous model of production, human capital accumulation, migration, population and physical capital investment of two regions: the Seoul Metropolitan Area and the rest of Korea. We decompose the regional growth path into a quality path and a quantity path to identify how regional economies grow and run simulations to evaluate alternative policies in terms of effectiveness and adaptability. The impact of education and R&D investment on regional growth in the rest of Korea is only 22.3% of that in the Seoul Metropolitan Area due to lower elasticity values of young in-migrants with respect to the investment in the rest of Korea. An enhanced efficiency of regional human capital accumulation is effective and adaptable to alleviate regional economic disparity.

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The COVID-19 pandemic is an unexpected-extreme event and has considerably impacted the national and regional economies. This paper emphasizes the importance of industrial structure for a region’s resistance to the recessionary shock. Two significant factors that may determine the regional industrial structures in this ongoing recession include the relative composition of essential/non-essential sectors and the intensity of face-to-face interactions. Considering these factors, we focus on two groups of industries: essential industry with low interpersonal interactions and non-essential industry with high interpersonal interactions. The specialization in these industries is associated with the regional economic resistance to the COVID-19 induced recession. Estimation results from the ordinal logistic regression models show that essential industries with low interpersonal interactions, especially the retail and service sectors––for instance, non-store retailers and financial and professional service––are significantly related to regional economic resistance, and their relationship intensifies compared to other sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, states specialized in the non-essential industries with high interpersonal interactions are less likely to resist economically during the lockdown-COVID and until the stabilizing-COVID period. In addition, a state that quickly recovered from the 2001 recession is more likely to resist the pandemic shock during early- and lockdown-COVID periods. Findings in this paper indicate the importance of regional industrial structure to determine the level of vulnerability to unexpected recessionary shocks. Additionally, identifying the vital factors to determine the industrial structure based on the type of shock is found to be crucial. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00168-022-01134-w.

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