Advances in Immunology and Microbiology Seminar Series: Dr. Vera Pfeiffer
- Optional after-seminar social: Please feel welcome to join us for an informal social gathering following each seminar at Trailside Taproom, 505 SE Riverview, Pullman.
About the event
The Advances in Immunology & Microbiology seminar series is a weekly forum that brings together scientists from diverse fields and disciplines across the College of Veterinary Medicine to discuss research advances in the broad areas of immunology, microbiology, infectious diseases, and global health. Seminars feature student speakers from the Immunology & Infectious Disease (IID) doctoral program, IID-affiliated postdoctoral researchers and faculty, intramural speakers from across the university, and extramural speakers.
PRESENTER: Dr. Vera Pfeiffer, postdoc (Dr. Karen Poh lab)
TITLE: Intensifying cattle fever tick exposure risk based on projected co-occurrence of cattle in pasture and wildlife tick hosts
ABSTRACT: Spatial and temporal models provide insight on the distribution of epidemiological agents and hosts, thus can help direct monitoring efforts and early interventions. I will share our recent spatial models for cattle fever tick hosts and cattle fever ticks in the Texas/Mexico region as well as Zimbabwe. Cattle fever ticks (CFT), Rhipicephalus microplus Canestrini and R. annulatus Say, are the most economically important pests of cattle in the world, and persistent tick incursions in Texas challenge the Cattle Fever Tick Eradication Program (CFTEP). Heightened pressure from growing wildlife host populations along the Texas-México border is a pressing complication for CFT control initiatives. We use species distribution models, literature, and quantitative survey data to project the distributions of important wildlife hosts, in order to investigate the co-occurrence of wildlife hosts with cattle in pasture and connectivity of the landscape for tick transmission. We explore the resulting landscape connectivity for ticks based on the density of free roaming wildlife hosts. Finally, I’ll share some work we’ve begun with collaborators in Zimbabwe to construct spatial models for tick species that vector, Babesia, Ehrlichia, and Theileria.