Protocol for Tick Collection – Hill Lab  Adapted from Seifert, V., et al. (2016)

 

Materials provided by Hill Lab:

  • Coverall
  • Duct tape
  • Tick drag cloth
  • “Tick Kit” for collecting ticks
  • Tick data sheet (Table 1)
  • Tick ID cards (Figure 1)
  • Forceps
  • Lab gloves
  • 1.5-mL eppendorf tubes
  • Markers
  • Pens
  • Tick repellent (DEET or permethrin)

 

Protocol:

  • Tick drag cloth: attach one end of a square meter of white or off-white, nappy fabric to a wooden stick with duct tape. Attach a string to each end of the wooden stick, which will help in dragging
  • Wear coverall and gloves. Duct tape the bottom of the shoes of coverall to prevent the coverall shoes from tearing while walking.
  • Each Tick kit contains a tick data sheet, Tick ID cards, lab gloves, five 1.5 mL eppendorf tubes, 50 mL falcon tube  a marker and a tick repellent such as DEET or permethrin. *Individual must double check contents of the “Tick Kit” before the start of dragging process.
  • Record coordinates of start point of dragging and then start dragging tick drag cloth on the sides of trails in the park.
  • Check for ticks every 10 meters or 32feet. If ticks are present, collect them using forceps and put them in an eppendorf tube.
  • Label the tube with date, location and initials and record coordinates every 400 meters (0.25 mile).
  • Drag for an hour or until 800 meters (0.5 miles) of the trail is sampled.
  • Before moving to another location, do a final check on the drag cloth, and check yourself for any ticks present on your coverall, and record following information onto the tick data sheet for that location.
    • Date, time, GPS coordinates and total number of ticks collected. If possible, also record number of males and females from each specie collected.

Click Here to download tick collection data sheet as a pdf.