For such a wee little thing, the tick has sure garnered a lot of our attention. That's because it can carry Lyme disease and that's something none of us wants to experience.
David Allen, a biology professor at Middlebury College, spoke to Vermont Edition about his tick research.
Allen and his team have been collecting ticks in Addison County for the past two years and found that population has doubled in that time.
One factor that might have caused the jump is the wet weather this spring and summer, which is favorable for ticks.
Allen is trying to learn as much as he can about what landscape or environmental factors affect tick populations.
What he's discerned so far is that there are 10 to 15 times more ticks at elevations below 1,000 feet than above.
"We can use this and other landscape factors to predict where ticks can be found and use it for targeted tick prevention strategies or avoiding areas of high risk," Allen says.
