Research Proposal: Quantifying Interactions of Neotropical Migratory Birds, Deer, Small Mammals, Ticks and Vegetation in the Epidemiology of Lyme Disease at Fire Island National Seashore, Long Island, NY

Buckley, P; Ginsberg, H; Underwood, H

Using the microcosm of an undeveloped barrier beach to develop techniques and estimate population changes that affect the landscape-scale of the entire Northeastern U.S., this five-year study will examine quantitative interrelationships among migratory birds, small mammals, deer, ticks, and vegetation to understand the ecology and epidemiology of Lyme Disease, while at the same time amassing unparalleled databases on numbers and species of the organisms involved and on their habitat preferences. This study will test neotropical migrants for changes in numbers confirming, denying or modifying estimates of declines in these birds detected by other studies, and test a wholly new approach contrasting several-year datasets separated by a 20-year span, instead of searching for trend lines in one continuous 20-year run of data. It will also quantify numbers of resident small mammals and deer, and their tick body burdens; it will determine tick fluxes caused by migratory birds (to date, unknown), and their effects on tick body burdens on small mammals and deer (also unknown). It will determine, for the first time ever, the reservoir competence for spirochetes, of migrating birds. Using deer-proof exclosures, it will also identify the influence of deer on local tick distribution, and will relate the distribution of all organisms to study area vegetation, inferring changes related to vegetation succession and White-tailed Deer abundance over the last 20 years. These data will then be used to calibrate and verify a newly derived model of risk to Lyme Disease, and attendant prescriptions for control of key ecological factors affecting risk---a model requiring firm data on numbers and fluxes of ticks. Lastly, this study will establish GIS-tied computer databases, study sites, permanent benchmarks, and deer-proof exclosures for future habitat and biota monitoring by NBS and NPS personnel.