Bacterial communities of two tick species and blood of their shared rodent host

Most macro-organisms house diverse microbial communities and with increasing use of high-throughput sequencing our knowledge of their microbiomes is growing. Of particular interest are disease vectors whose associations with microbes could potentially affect pathogen transmission and vector competence. We investigated the bacterial community composition and diversity of two tick species, Dermacentor variabilis (N = 87) and Ixodes scapularis (21), and blood of their shared rodent host, Peromyscus leucopus (182). The 16S rRNA gene was amplified from genomic DNA from field-collected tick and rodent blood samples and 454 pyrosequencing was used to evaluate their bacterial communities.