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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    The Tick Blood Meal: From a Living Animalor from a Silicone Membrane ?
    (2007)
    Kröber, Thomas
    ;
    An artificial feeding unit with a reinforced silicone membrane to replace host skin provides ticks with a perch over blood with a tick attachment rate of 75-100%. Some 5 mg of an acaricide like fipronil is sufficient to establish survival curves over different doses down to ppb levels in blood. This in vitro feeding assay for hard ticks is more advantageous than in vivotrials on animals.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    In vitro assays for repellents and deterrents for ticks: differing effects of products when tested with attractant or arrestment stimuli
    (2003)
    McMahon, Conor
    ;
    Kröber, Thomas
    ;
    Most in vivo and in vitro tests with repellents or deterrents against ticks have not considered which sensory channel is being targeted. We have recorded the responses of two hard tick species (Acari: Ixodidae) in vitro to determine if such products can disrupt the perception of an attractant in a repellent assay or the perception of an arrestment stimulus in a deterrent assay. Ethyl butylacetylaminopropionate (EBAAP), N,N-diethyl-methyl-benzamide (deet), permethrin and indalone were chosen to test their capacity to inhibit the attraction of Amblyomma variegatum Fabricius to its aggregation-attachment pheromone. Vapours of each test product plus those from a synthetic blend of the pheromone were delivered to the walking tick in an air stream on a locomotion compensator. Neither EBAAP, deet, permethrin nor indalone could inhibit attraction of A. variegatum even when each of the test products was delivered at 106 times the pheromone. Indalone did decrease the attraction of A. variegatum to the pheromone and induced repulsion of A. variegatum when presented on its own in the air stream. The effect of permethrin, a sodium channel blocker, was also tested in a deterrent assay measuring the arrestment of Ixodes ricinus (L.) adults on its own faeces and faecal constituents. Permethrin deterred arrestment at doses of 670 fg/cm2 to 67 ng/cm2, i.e. at levels five times lower than the dose of chemostimuli present in the arrestment stimulus. This sensitivity to permethrin suggests that it acts via the contact chemoreception channel.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    The Dynamics of an Avoidance Behavior by Ixodid Ticks to Liquid Water
    (2000)
    Kröber, Thomas
    ;
    Life stages of different tick species avoid walking on a wet surface surrounding a dry patch by systematically returning to the dry each time they contact the wet surface beyond the border with the tip of a first leg tarsus. Sequential analysis of the border behaviors shows that repetitive contact with the water increases the probability of walks astride the border. Ticks accept this unilateral contact with the water for longer intervals and eventually walk on to the wet surface after a combination of a short patch walk followed by a border walk which is longer than the foregoing ones. Staying time on a small circular patch is shorter than on a large one, arising probably from faster adaptation of peripheral receptors following a higher frequency of border contacts. However, an equal number of border reactions on patches of different sizes and shapes suggests that a counter in the CNS may also influence dry patch departure.