Argasid Ticks
Warthogs, a natural reservoir for the soft-tick borne disease African Swine Fever
Ornithodoros moubata is a known vector for African swine fever (ASF), a catastrophically fatal disease for domesticated pigs in Africa and Europe. In the absence of any previous models for soft-bodied ticks, we propose two mathematical models of the life cycle of O. moubata. One is a continuous-time differential equation model that simplifies the tick life cycle to two stages, and the second is a discrete-time difference equation model that uses four stages. Both models use two host types: small hosts and large hosts, and both models find that either host type alone could support the tick population and that the final tick density is a function of host density.
In collaboration with Courtney L. Davis, Samantha Erwin, Gabriela Hamerlinck, Amy Veprauskas, Yangyang Wang, Wenjing Zhang, and Holly Gaff
Clifton SM, Davis CL, Erwin S, Hamerlinck G, Veprauskas A, Wang Y, Zhang W, Gaff H (2018)
Modeling the argasid tick (Ornithodoros moubata) life cycle.
Understanding Complex Biological Systems with Mathematics. Radunskaya A, Segal R, Shtylla B (Eds.)