S E Randolph

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..We warn against raising a straw man, an untenable argument easily dismantled and dismissed. The intrinsic value of protecting biodiversity and ecosystem function outweighs this questionable utilitarian justification...

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..Many of these stem from the political transition with the end of Soviet rule...

..It is the most important vector-borne disease of humans in Europe, for which excellent long-term data allow robust quantitative analyses...

..abstract:..

..Human activities, however, may be equally important in determining dynamic patterns of infection incidence in humans...

..This new perspective may also help explain the epidemiology of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever around the eastern Mediterranean region, including the current exceptional epidemic in Turkey...

..Socioeconomic factors and nutritional status determine human exposure to disease and resistance to infection, respectively, so that disease incidence can vary independently of biological cycles...

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..This identifies the particular climatic factors that permit such patterns of tick seasonal dynamics as the primary predictors for the focal distribution of TBE...

..burgdorferi, but they can transmit localized infections from infected to uninfected ticks co-feeding at the same site on the sheep's body...

..The observed marked increase in incidence of tick-borne encephalitis in most parts of Europe since 1993 may be due to non-biological causes, such as political and sociological changes...

..The model is potentially applicable to other species of ticks, both tropical and temperate, to predict tick abundance and seasonality as risk factors for tick-borne diseases...

..It is proposed that such a seasonal temperature profile may cause unfed larvae to pass the winter in quiescence, from which they emerge synchronously with nymphs in the spring...

..The species-specific pattern of viability and/or lysis is highly consistent with the pattern of reservoir competence of hosts for B. burgdorferi sensu lato, suggesting a key role of complement in the global ecology of Lyme borreliosis...

..Wildlife management may have an influence on the relative risk of different clinical forms of Lyme borreliosis...

..These results were applied to future climate scenarios to predict future distributions, which showed remarkably few changes, even under the most extreme scenarios...

..533 and 0.716, respectively)...

..Temperate and tropical patterns will be illustrated with reference mostly to Ixodes ricinus and Rhipicephalus appendiculatus, respectively...

..The same principle may apply to the periodic epidemics of Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever...

..It is argued that testosterone helps to generate the observed aggregated distributions of parasites amongst their hosts, which also enhances parasite persistence...

..This probably accounts for a genuine emergence of LB, with its high potential transmission rate, in both the USA and Europe, although the rate of emergence has been exaggerated by improved surveillance and diagnosis...

..The lowest innate and acquired resistance to tick feeding occurs in that fraction of the host population, i.e., sexually active males, most actively involved in the transmission of both Babesia microti and Borrelia burgdorferi s.l...

..Satellite sensor data promise the development of early-warning systems for diseases such as malaria, which kills between 1 and 2 million people each year...

..A high degree of temporal and spatial variation in the climate of East Africa suggests further that claimed associations between local malaria resurgences and regional changes in climate are overly simplistic...

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..Questing tick population dynamics are determined by seasonal patterns of tick behaviour, host-contact rates and mortality rates, superimposed on a basal phenology that is much less complex than has hitherto been portrayed...

..If proven, this would be an interesting result but we believe that the methods used do not test the hypothesis suggested...

..We find the widespread increase in resistance of the malaria parasite to drugs and the decrease in vector control activities to be more likely driving forces behind the malaria resurgence...

..In this article, the current aims of this project are questioned on historical, ecological, logistical and financial grounds...

..The direction, intensity or likelihood of its spread to new regions could then be predicted, potentially allowing disease early-warning systems to be developed...

..This will indicate the extent of key ecological drivers for specific evolutionary events, whose biological basis can then be explored in detail...

..Tick infestation prevalence increased over time on all grouse moors and 77% of MoD estates and decreased at six locations...

..We conclude that risk avoidance through changing human behaviour has driven incidence-dependent decreases in TBE infection, but targeted vaccination campaigns could provide more secure protection...

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..For the first time, we analyse climate and TBE epidemiology at sufficiently fine spatial and temporal resolution to question this assumption...

..It seems that, under certain circumstances, ticks of this ambushing species will move short distances towards host odour...

..A pattern of differential survival of the spirochetes in feeding ticks was observed. The result is consistent with the concept of selective transmission of Lyme borreliosis spirochetes...