Improving Widescale Monitoring of Ectoparasite Presence in Northern Canadian Wildlife with the Aid of Citizen Science

Abstract

Sampling hides from harvested animals is commonly used for passive monitoring of ectoparasites on wildlife hosts, but often relies heavily on community engagement to obtain spatially and temporally consistent samples. Surveillance of winter ticks (Dermacentor albipictus) on moose (Alces alces) and caribou (Rangifer tarandus caribou) hosts in Yukon, Canada, has relied in part on voluntary submission of hides by hunters since 2011, but few samples were submitted. To enhance sampling efforts on underrepresented moose and caribou hosts, we implemented a three-year citizen science program, the Yukon Winter Tick Monitoring Project (YWTMP), to better engage with hunters in hide sample collection. A combination of in-person and social media outreach, incentivized engagement, and standardized hide sampling kits increased voluntary submissions of moose and caribou hides almost 100-fold since surveillance began. Citizen science samples expanded the northernmost geographic extent of existing sampling efforts for moose by 480 km and for caribou by 650 km to reach 67.5° N latitude. Samples also resulted in new detections of winter ticks on moose hides that are spatially separate to those submitted for other cervids in Yukon. Findings from the YWTMP have provided an essential baseline to monitor future winter tick host–parasite dynamics in the region and highlighted priority areas for ongoing tick surveillance.

Revealing large‐scale parasite ranges: An integrated spatiotemporal database and multisource analysis of the winter tick

“…Additionally, it is possible that increased interest in the life cycle of Ixodes ticks may have driven greater sampling of deer post‐1982, after the discovery of the role of white‐tailed deer in the transmission of the Lyme disease agent Borrelia burgdorferi (Burgdorfer et al, 1982). Ongoing and renewed interest in the detrimental effects of winter ticks on their hosts at the individual and population level has resulted in multiple sources of information drawn from government monitoring and academic research (e.g., Amerasinghe et al, 1992; Environment and Natural Resources NWT, 2019; Jones et al, 2019; Ohio Department of Health, 2020) to community engagement and citizen science initiatives (Chenery, Henaff, et al, 2022; https://eTick.ca, 2021; https://iNaturalist.org, 2021; Watt, 2021). Although the latter currently makes up a small part of the total number of distribution records for D. albipictus , citizen science data are predicted to become an increasingly important source of tick distribution information in the future (Eisen & Eisen, 2021; Heberling et al, 2021; Silvertown, 2009).…”

“…However, all records remain below 62° N, consistent with the findings of Samuel's earlier survey (1989). Although most of these records remain concentrated around the Ibex Valley and Braeburn regions that form the core management area for elk, detections farther east and south of this location indicate that this is unlikely to be the sole source of the winter tick population (Figure 4) (Chenery, Henaff, et al, 2022; Environment Yukon, 2010). There are several records across the Southern Lakes region prior to government records on elk and deer (2007), including one from a moose in Watson Lake in 1994 (Environment Yukon, 2010).…”

“…The predominant sources of information on D. albipictus that have appeared in the last two decades are those of unpublished research or monitoring datasets. These records are often collected at regional scales as part of ongoing government surveillance of wildlife health in general, although some have designated winter tick monitoring efforts (e.g., monitoring moose hair loss in British Columbia; ungulate hide surveillance in the Yukon; Chenery, Henaff, et al, 2022). We sought to include at least some of these unpublished data in our dataset to both fill gaps in the recent record and assist in making these data accessible to other researchers.…”

The wild life of ticks: Using passive surveillance to determine the distribution and wildlife host range of ticks and the exotic Haemaphysalis longicornis, 2010–2021

“…Many of these passive surveillance strategies involve image submissions of ticks for expert, artificial intelligence, or crowdsourced identification [8][9][10][11], the use of electronic patient records from companion animals [12], and most commonly whole tick submissions from citizen scientists, veterinarians, and physicians [13][14][15][16][17][18]. Only a few published studies using passive surveillance have included ticks collected from wildlife hosts, and of those studies, most were statewide surveys, leaving gaps in our understanding of the regional distribution of ticks relevant to both human and animal health [19][20][21][22][23].…”

The wild life of ticks: using passive surveillance to determine the distribution and wildlife host range of ticks and the exoticHaemaphysalis longicornis, 2010-2021

“…Many of these passive surveillance strategies involve image submissions of ticks for expert, artificial intelligence, or crowd sourced identification [8–11], the use of electronic patient records from companion animals [12], and most commonly whole tick submissions from citizen scientists, veterinarians, and physicians [13–18]. Only a few published studies using passive surveillance have included ticks collected from wildlife hosts, and of those studies, most were to statewide surveys leaving gaps in our understanding of the regional distribution of ticks relevant to both human and animal health [19–23].…”