Responses of juvenile blacklegged ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) to hosts of varying quality

Blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are the most medically and economically important vectors in North America. Each of their three life stages requires a bloodmeal from one of many potential host species, during which they can acquire or transmit pathogens. Host species, however, vary tremendously in their quality for ticks, as measured by differences in feeding and molting success. There should be clear fitness benefits for ticks that preferentially feed upon high-quality hosts (e.g., white-footed mice, Peromyscus leucopus), or at least avoid feeding on very low-quality hosts (e.g., Virginia opossums, Didelphis virginiana). Indeed, laboratory experiments have found some evidence of host preferences in I. scapularis; but these involve presenting ticks with hosts simultaneously and measuring movement towards hosts on a horizontal plane. In nature, however, host seeking ticks encounter hosts sequentially and their movements are principally in a vertical plane. Here, we present the resu..., , , # Responses of juvenile blacklegged ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) to hosts of varying quality

These data come from an experiment designed to determine if larval and nymphal blacklegged ticks (*Ixodes scapularis*) alter their vertical movements (i.e., \"questing\") in the presence of hosts, and whether any changes in these behaviors scale with the quality of the host species. We used wild caught white-footed mice (*Peromyscus leucopus*), eastern chipmunks (*Tamias striatus*), gray squirrels (*Sciurus carolinensis*), and virginia opossums (*Didelphus virginiana*) as our host species, as these species span the spectrum from high-quality to very low-quality hosts. We placed ticks on clear, vertical rods, and tracked their locations on the rods without a host present, and then after a host was placed.

## Description of the data and file structure

Data are measurements of either the average height or the total distance travelled in cm (converted to \"speed\" within the provided code) in the absence ...