Tejon Ranch Exclosure Experiment - Tick (family Ixodidae: subclass Acari) and Small Vertebrate Responses

Large-bodied wild ungulates are declining worldwide, while domestic livestock continue to increase in abundance. Such changes in large herbivore communities should have strong effects on the control of ticks and tickborne disease as they can indirectly modify habitat and directly serve as final hosts for ticks’ lifecycles. Numerous studies have now linked changing ungulate communities to changes in tick populations and disease risk. However, the effects of changing large herbivore communities are variable across studies, and the effect of climate as a mediating factor of this variation remains poorly understood. Also, studies to date have largely focused on wildlife loss without considering the extent to which livestock additions may alter tick populations, even though livestock replacement of wildlife is the global norm. In this study, we used a large-scale exclosure experiment replicated along a topo-climatic gradient to examine the effects on tick populations of both large herbivore ..., , , ## Data Files **Tejon_MeanComparisons_Dataset.csv**: contains tick drag data aggregated by *year*, *month*, *site*, *block*, and *plot*. The tick drag data includes a *total* column of all tick species collected and additionally, four columns representing the three tick species collected via drags *deoc* (*Dermacentor occidentalis*), *ipac* (*Ixodes pacificus*), *deva* (*Dermacentor variabilis*), and *other* (for non-identified ticks). Finally, it contains a unique numerical ID for each of the 27 exclosure treatments of TREE, *plotID*. This data was used in the manuscript's analyses, which investigated the individual and interactive impacts of climate level and herbivore treatment on tick abundance. **Tejon_MixedModels_Dataset.csv**: in addition to tick drag data, it contains columns liz_estimate and mam_estimates created by the results located in the **tejon_mamliz_popestimates.csv** file detailed below. This data set analyzes climate and herbivore treatment impact on lizard and sma...全球范围内，体型较大的野生有蹄类动物（wild ungulates）种群持续衰退，而家养牲畜（domestic livestock）的种群丰度却不断增长。大型草食动物群落的此类变化，会对蜱虫（tick）及其传播疾病的防控产生显著调控作用：它们既可以间接改变栖息地环境，也能直接充当蜱虫生命周期的终末宿主（final host）。目前已有大量研究将有蹄类群落的变化与蜱虫种群及疾病传播风险的改变建立关联。然而，不同研究中大型草食动物群落变化的影响存在显著异质性，而气候作为调节该异质性的中介因子（mediating factor），其作用机制仍未得到充分阐释。此外，现有研究大多聚焦于野生有蹄类的种群衰减，却未考量家畜数量增加对蜱虫种群的潜在影响，尽管野生动物被家畜替代已是全球范围内的普遍现象。本研究依托沿地形-气候梯度（topo-climatic gradient）设置的大规模重复排除式围栏实验（exclosure experiment），探究了两类大型草食动物对蜱虫种群的影响…… ## 数据文件 **Tejon_MeanComparisons_Dataset.csv**：包含按年份（year）、月份（month）、样点（site）、区组（block）和样方（plot）聚合的蜱虫拖拽采样数据（tick drag data）。该数据集设有记录所有采集蜱虫物种总数的total列，此外还包含4个分列，分别对应通过拖拽采样获得的3种蜱虫物种：*deoc*（**Dermacentor occidentalis**，西部革蜱）、*ipac*（**Ixodes pacificus**，太平洋硬蜱）、*deva*（**Dermacentor variabilis**，美洲狗蜱），以及用于归类未鉴定蜱虫的other列。数据集还包含对应27个TREE围栏处理样地的唯一数值ID：plotID。 本数据集用于该论文的分析工作，该分析旨在探究气候水平与草食动物处理方式对蜱虫丰度（abundance）的独立及交互影响。 **Tejon_MixedModels_Dataset.csv**：除蜱虫拖拽采样数据外，该数据集还包含liz_estimate与mam_estimates列，其数据来源于下文详述的**tejon_mamliz_popestimates.csv**文件中的种群估算结果。本数据集用于分析气候与草食动物处理方式对蜥蜴及……的影响。