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.