1st Place: D3112: Reassessing the presence of tick-borne pathogens transmitted by the seabird tick Ixodes uriae in Gulf of Maine seabird colonies

The seabird tick Ixodes uriae has a circumpolar distribution and primarily infests marine birds in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. While I. uriae has been researched extensively in Europe and the Southern Hemisphere, tick populations in the Northwest Atlantic are understudied. Numerous infectious agents have previously been isolated from I. uriae worldwide, including species of the spirochaete bacteria Borrelia known to cause Lyme borreliosis. Seabirds play a vital role in disease systems involving I. uriae as a vector, where they act as both hosts and dispersal agents. Prospecting seabirds hosting I. uriae aid the dispersal of infected ticks by allowing them to overcome geographic barriers, expand their range to neighboring colonies, and introduce naïve tick populations to novel pathogens through blood meals from infected hosts. No studies have detected tick-borne pathogens in I. uriae from the Gulf of Maine’s seabird colonies, although Borrelia garinii was recently documented in those collected from Atlantic puffin colonies in Newfoundland. With assistance from the Gulf of Maine Seabird Working Group and the University of Maine Diagnostic & Research Laboratory, we conducted pathogen analyses on I. uriae collected from six seabird colonies within the Gulf of Maine to determine the presence of Borrelia spp. and other tick-borne pathogens on islands without previously documented infections. Gaining insight into the expanding distribution of tick-borne pathogens on remote seabird colonies will help further our understanding of how these pathogens come to occupy geographically isolated locations.