To see how much the temperature, in particular, mattered, Raoult and two colleagues turned themselves into human guinea pigs. They incubated 500 brown dog ticks at 77 degrees Fahrenheit (25 C) and 500 at 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 C). Then, they placed the ticks on their own arms. "They take a very long time to attach," Raoult said, bravely. "It's not like a mosquito. They don't have time to bite you." After an hour, about half of the ticks incubated at 104 degrees tried to burrow in, Raoult said. None of those incubated at 77 degrees did. The results appeared in November in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. Raoult suspects thirst drives the ticks to seek human blood at higher temperatures. As global climate warms, dog ticks might be more likely to bite people, and tick-transmitted diseases might become more common, the researchers concluded. Those conclusions are reasonable, Paddock agreed. But he was wary of inferring too much from this particular study. Temperature is just one factor that affects tick behavior, for one thing. And a sudden surge from 77 degrees to 104 degrees is too extreme to mimic a realistic global warming scenario. "We're witnessing small incremental changes over time," Paddock said. "We don't know what sort of changes we'll see on a global scale." Related Links: |
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