Effect of Temperature and Precipitation on Tick Abundance
The increase of Lyme disease in North America is evident as there are over 30,000 annual cases. It is known that increased levels of tick abundance results in higher levels of vector-borne diseases such as Lyme disease. This is a brief overview of data collected on the abundance of ticks in response to two variables, average daily temperature and average daily precipitation. Here, we investigate if daily temperature and precipitation amounts have an effect on the abundance of ticks. Data was collected from NEON data collection. Our datasets were collected from the Harvard Forest site. The collected data was from 2017-2018. Statistical analysis of the data was performed in R studio. The relationship of average daily temperature and average precipitation amounts were tested against tick abundance. After analyzing the data, it was found that there was no significant relationship between tick abundance and average daily temperature and average daily precipitation. This review is in conflict with previous studies performed and can be used as a catalyst to investigate other factors that may be influencing the abundance of ticks.