Abstract
BackgroundTick-borne diseases (TBDs) are a serious threat to humans, wildlife and livestock, and cause severe economic losses in many tropical drylands. The effective control of TBDs has been constrained by limited understanding of what determines tick loads in animals. We tested interactive effects of several biological factors (sex, age and body condition), one environmental factor (rainfall) and one human factor (management type) on tick loads in animals.MethodsWe collected ticks on animals at four sampling sites in the semi-arid savanna area of Laikipia County, Kenya, of which two are commercial ranches and the other two are open pastoral grazing areas. From 2017 to 2019, we collected a total of 2038 ticks from 619 domestic animals from various cattle and camel herds and from 79 tranquilised wild animals.ResultsGenerally, wild herbivores (zebras, rhinos and elephants) had higher tick loads than domestic animals. As 83% of the tick samples were taken from Boran cattle, we analysed tick load in these cattle in more detail. Boran cattle had high tick loads in the wet season, especially those animals in poor condition. No differences were found between female and male cattle, regardless of season. The calves had high tick loads during both the wet and dry seasons, whereas the sub-adult and adult cattle had less ticks during the dry season. Cattle on the intensively managed ranches had lower tick load than those in the transhumant management system.ConclusionThese findings highlight the importance of establishing effective control of ticks on domestic animals in transhumant management systems as tick loads were high on these animals in both the wet and dry season.Graphic abstract
Highlights
Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are a serious threat to humans, wildlife and livestock, and cause severe economic losses in many tropical drylands
Many studies on the risk of TBDs have mainly focussed on several factors, such as environmental [12], biological [13, 14] and human factors [15,16,17,18]
Amblyomma rhinocerotis and A. coherence were specific to black rhino, while R. camicasi was specific to camel
Summary
Tick-borne diseases (TBDs) are a serious threat to humans, wildlife and livestock, and cause severe economic losses in many tropical drylands. We tested interactive effects of several biological factors (sex, age and body condition), one environmental factor (rainfall) and one human factor (management type) on tick loads in animals. Many studies on the risk of TBDs have mainly focussed on several factors, such as environmental (rainfall, temperature and humidity) [12], biological (age, sex, body condition) [13, 14] and human factors (land use, animal husbandry) [15,16,17,18]. Studies have shown that biological factors, such as age, sex and body condition of the host animals, influence tick load [22, 23]. We expect animals in a poor condition to have a higher tick load than those with a good body condition, especially during the wet season (hypothesis 2). We expect calves to have more ticks than sub-adults and adults, especially during the wet season (hypothesis 4)
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