Tracking seasonal activity of the western blacklegged tick across California

1. Understanding seasonal patterns of activity, or phenology, of vector species is fundamental to determining seasonality of disease risk and epidemics of vector-borne disease. Spatiotemporal variation in abiotic conditions can influence variation in phenological patterns and life history events, which can dramatically influence the ecological role and human impact of a species. For arthropod vectors of human diseases such as ticks, these phenological patterns determine human exposure risk, yet how abiotic conditions interact to determine suitable conditions for host-seeking of vector species is difficult to disentangle.
2. Here we use MaxEnt to model spatial patterns and differences in host-seeking phenology of the western blacklegged tick (Ixodes pacificus) in California using spatially and temporally refined adult tick occurrence data and similarly refined climate and environmental data. We empirically validate the model using phenological data from field studies conducted at sites...