2025-09-01
Revealing how tick hitchhikers impact human and animal health, while inviting citizen scientists to help map these disease-carrying arachnids across Australia's diverse landscapes.
By Xavier Barton, pursuing his PhD at Murdoch University, studying Australian tick ecology through an integrated approach examining their genetics, habitats, and associated microbes, with a focus on the ornate kangaroo tick (Amblyomma triguttatum). His research aims to provide insights into how ticks and tick-borne pathogens spread across landscapes, addressing a significant knowledge gap in Australian tick research.
Picture this: you're enjoying a peaceful bushwalk with your dog, taking in the trees, listening to bird calls, and appreciating the natural world around you. Then you spot it: a tiny creature scurrying up your leg, having hitched a ride after you brushed against some vegetation. That unwelcome passenger? A tick.
As well as being a general annoyance on your bushwalk, ticks punch well above their weight when it comes to their impacts on human and animal health. These blood-sucking terrestrial parasites belong to the class Arachnida, making them more closely related to spiders and scorpions than to insects like beetles or ants, with 74 species being recorded in Australia, five of which are introduced. They contain a great diversity of bacteria in their gut, many of which can be pathogenic to humans and domestic animals.
My research takes a holistic approach to investigating tick ecology and their capacity to spread diseases across Australia. This work is particularly important because Australian tick research has been underrepresented compared to regions like North America and Europe, where tick-borne diseases affecting humans are more prevalent and therefore better funded.
While Australia is relatively fortunate in having fewer tick-borne diseases that directly impact our people and animals, we're not immune to their effects. Our domestic animals face significant risks, as shown by a stark reminder that came during COVID in 2020, when a bacterial pathogen called Ehrlichia canis was introduced to northern Western Australia. This pathogen caused devastating mortality amongst dogs in the region, causing dogs to haemorrhage and suddenly die. The community impact was profound, as pet owners watched their beloved companions succumb to this tick-borne disease.
These events underscore why understanding tick ecology is crucial. By comprehending how ticks move and function within our ecosystems, we can better mitigate the risks associated with the diseases they carry.
My PhD project examines tick ecology through three approaches:
Population Genetics: I analyse DNA differences between tick specimens to understand how closely related individual ticks are to each other across the landscape. My research focuses on Perth's Swan Coastal Plain, which is a complex mosaic of Banksia woodland, urban development, agricultural land, and rapidly expanding suburbs.
Environmental Analysis: The mixed land use within the Swan Coastal Plain creates an ideal environment for testing how different land covers (i.e., natural vegetation, urban areas, or agricultural land) influence how ticks move through the environment. By mapping population genetic structure and overlaying environmental variables like land cover, climate factors, and soil attributes, I can determine what influences tick movement and distribution across different landscapes.
Microbiome Analysis: As the movement of tick-borne pathogens relies on the movement of the ticks themselves, we could build on the population structure and environmental data to examine what bacteria live within tick specimens and where across the Swan Coastal Plain. This reveals which pathogens are circulating through the environment and how diseases might spread across different habitats.
Perhaps most importantly, this research extends beyond the laboratory into the community, and this is where you can help. If you enjoy bushwalking and occasionally encounter these arachnid hitchhikers, you can directly support our research at Murdoch University's Cryptick Lab in two ways:
Join Our iNaturalist Project: We're running the Tick Exploration project on the iNaturalist platform. When you spot a tick in the environment, simply photograph it and upload the image through the app. Scientists and naturalists worldwide will help identify the species, creating a valuable database of tick distribution and seasonality across Western Australia. We currently have about 280 observations and are always eager for more data points.
iNaturalist is fantastic for any nature enthusiast globally. It works with all organisms, so you can identify interesting plants, animals, or fungi you encounter and see how they're distributed locally and globally.
Send Us Your Specimens: If you find a tick attached to yourself or your animals, consider sending it to our lab after safe removal. We can extract DNA to identify the species, test for pathogens, and contribute to our understanding of population structure. This data helps us build a comprehensive framework for protecting people, companion animals, livestock, and wildlife.
This research embodies the interconnected thinking that drives environmental policy. Tick-borne diseases don't respect boundaries between human health, animal welfare, and ecosystem health. Climate change, habitat fragmentation, and urbanisation all influence tick populations and disease transmission patterns.
By understanding these relationships, we can develop evidence-based strategies for managing tick-borne disease risks whilst preserving our unique biodiversity and ecosystem health. This research contributes to the One Health approach, which recognises that human health, animal health, and environmental health are fundamentally interconnected.
Your participation in citizen science projects like this demonstrates how community engagement can drive meaningful environmental research. Every observation and specimen contributes to a larger understanding that helps protect our shared environment.
So next time you're out enjoying Western Australia's beautiful bushland, remember that even those tiny hitchhikers have a story to tell about our ecosystems. And with your help, we can ensure that story includes effective disease prevention and environmental stewardship for generations to come.
To participate in the "Tick Exploration" iNaturalist project follow this link: https://inaturalist.ala.org.au/projects/tick-exploration or feel free to reach out to me at mailto:xavier.barton@murdoch.edu.au to send us some specimens.
Header photo: Ticks
[Opinions expressed are those of the author and not official policy of Greens WA]