High-resolution environmental and host-related factors impacting questing Ixodes scapularis at their northern range edge

The geographic range of tick populations has expanded in Canada due to climate warming and the associated poleward range shifts of their vertebrate hosts. Abiotic factors, such as temperature, precipitation, and snow, are known to directly affect tick abundance. Yet, biotic factors, such as the abundance and diversity of mammal hosts, may also alter tick abundance and consequent tick-borne disease risk. Here, we incorporated host surveillance data with high-resolution environmental data to evaluate the combined impact of abiotic and biotic factors on questing Ixodes scapularis abundance in Ontario and Quebec, Canada. High-resolution abiotic factors were derived from remote sensing satellites and meteorological towers, while biotic factors related to mammal hosts were derived from active surveillance data that we collected in the field. Generalized additive models were used to determine the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors on questing I. scapularis abundance. Combination..., Broad-scale remote sensing data were extracted from MODIS to determine the values of land surface temperature, total evapotranspiration, and enhanced vegetation indices. This data was extracted and processed in ArcMap and then further processed in R.
Data was extracted from meteorological towers through Environment and Climate Change Canada, which was processed in R.
Data from field surveys were processed in R. , ArcMap was used to process shapefiles and rasters from MODIS. Python codes required for the conversion of HDF to TIFF files as well as the extraction of each abiotic factor are available. 
R code was used to process the extracted data and conduct our analyses., This README file was generated on 2024-01-22 by Kirsten E. Crandall.

**GENERAL INFORMATION**

1. Title of dataset: High-resolution environmental and host-related factors impacting questing Ixodes scapularis at their northern range edge

2. Author information
A. First author contact information
Name: Kirsten E. Crandall
Institution: McGill University and University of Ottawa
Address: Montréal, Québec, Canada
Email:

B. Co-author contact information
Name: Virginie Millien
Institution: McGill University
Address: Montréal, Québec, Canada
Email:

Name: Jeremy T. Kerr
Institution: University of Ottawa
Address: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Email:

3. Date of data collection (approximate range date): 2018-2019

4. Geographic location of data collection: Ontario and Québec, Canada

5. Information about funding sources that supported data collection: Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (including RGPIN-2017-03839 ...