Molecular comparison of cattle fever ticks from native and introduced ranges, with insights into optimal search areas for classical biological control agents

College

College of Science

Department/Unit

Center for Natural Sciences and Environment Research

Document Type

Article

Source Title

Southwestern Entomologist

Volume

41

Issue

3

First Page

595

Last Page

603

Publication Date

9-1-2016

Abstract

Cattle fever ticks, the southern cattle tick, Rhipicephalus microplus (Canestrini), and cattle tick, Rhipicephalus annulatus (Say), are livestock pests endemic to Mexico and invasive along the Texas-Mexico border. Resistance to acaricide, alternate wildlife hosts, and pathogenic landscape-forming weeds present challenges for sustainable eradication of this pest in the U.S. Classical biological control is being explored as a strategy to control cattle fever ticks, especially on alternate hosts such as nilgai antelope, Boselaphus tragocamelus (Pallas), and white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus (Zimmermann). Molecular genetic tools were used to compare populations of cattle fever ticks from native and introduced ranges to provide insights into optimal search areas for potential biological control agents. Accessions representative of invasive populations of southern cattle tick from subtropical Zapata, TX, and other parts of the invaded range including Brazil and Kenya matched most closely populations in Cambodia and the Philippines. Similarly, accessions of cattle tick from invaded range in Del Rio, TX matched closely with accessions from native range in Bulgaria and Romania. These regions should be prioritized for field exploration for biological control agents.

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Digitial Object Identifier (DOI)

10.3958/059.041.0302

Disciplines

Biology

Keywords

Cattle tick—Biological control; Cattle—Parasites; Cattle—Parasites—Biological control

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