This award supports a US-South Africa cooperative research project entitled Physiological Ecology of Ixodid Ticks: Water Balance and Behavior. The principal investigators are Glen R. Needham, Department of Entomology, Ohio State University, and Leon Fourie, Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of the Orange Free State (UOFS), Bloemfontein, South Africa. The research focuses on two critical issues for a terrestrial arthropod: the water uptake mechanism and the behaviors associated with water balance. The investigators will study how ticks survive for long periods without eating or drinking water while waiting or searching for a host to parasitize. This longevity makes ticks unique in that they serve both as potential vectors and reservoirs of disease. Dr. Fourie has a unique setting to study one of the richest tick faunas in the world, in which the entire spectrum of survival strategies for long off-host periods is found. The project combines the field and laboratory experience of the investigator and his students at UOFS with the US investigator's expertise in tick water balance physiology.
