No abstract

In the present study, samples representing three hard tick species and one soft tick species, namely Dermacentor marginatus, Haemaphysalis punctata, Ixodes ricinus and Argas persicus from southwestern Romania, and one hard tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, from China were characterized genetically by a portion of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 gene (pcox1) and a portion of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide dehydrogenase subunit 5 gene (pnad5). The pcox1 and pnad5 were amplified separately from individual ticks by PCR, sequenced and analyzed. The length of pcox1 and pnad5 sequences of all samples was 732 and 519 bp, respectively. The intra-specific sequence variation in De. marginatus was 0.1-1.0% for pcox1 and 0.2-1.2% for pnad5, whereas in Ha. punctata it was 0.4-1.9% for pcox1 and 0.4-1.0% for pnad5. For the tick species examined in the present study, sequence comparison revealed that the inter-specific sequence differences were higher: 15.9-27.6% for pcox1 and 20.3-42.4% for pnad5. This suggests that the cox1 and nad5 sequences could provide useful genetic markers for the specific identification and genetic characterization of ticks in Romania and elsewhere.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

The distribution of the tick Ixodes uriae is studied in the South Shetlands and diVerent locations along the Antarctic Peninsula. Ticks were found beneath stones close to penguin rookeries of chinstrap, gentoo and adelie penguin, although no individuals were found parasitized. Our results showed that ticks are not distributed evenly along the Antarctic Peninsula being more common and abundant in the northern part with relative abundances of ticks ranging from 1 to 57 individuals per stone and from 2 to 26% of the stone inspected. Ticks are probably absent in the south.

No abstract

In the present study, four hard tick species and one soft tick species, namely, Dermacentor marginatus, Haemaphysalis punctata, Haemaphysalis parva, Ixodes ricinus, and Dermanyssus gallinae, from south-western Romania were characterized genetically by the first (ITS-1) and second (ITS-2) internal transcribed spacers (ITS) of nuclear ribosomal DNA (rDNA), using a hard tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, from China for comparative purposes. The ITS rDNA was amplified by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and sequenced from individual ticks. The lengths of the ITS-1 sequences were 238-1819 bp, and the lengths of ITS-2 were 137-1695 bp, respectively, for all ticks sequenced. While sequence variation within a hard tick species was 0-1.5%, nucleotide differences between hard tick species ranged 2-25.2%, indicating that ITS rDNA sequences provide genetic markers for the differentiation of hard ticks from Romania. Hence, a PCR-linked restriction fragment length polymorphism approach was developed for their unequivocal differentiation based on ITS-1 rDNA. This is the first characterization of ticks from Romania using a genetic approach, which provides the foundation for further studies on ticks in Romania and has implications for studying the population genetic structure of the Romanian ticks and for identification and differentiation of closely related ticks.