MaineHealth scientists investigate link between ticks in Maine, climate change - fox23maine.com

MaineHealth scientists investigate link between ticks in Maine, climate change

PORTLAND (WGME) -- Because of our rainy winter and early spring, ticks are bad right now.

MaineHealth says this "Lyme Disease Awareness Month," it's researching tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease and the connection to climate change.

The research includes figuring out where ticks carrying Powassan virus are getting their food from.

Scientists are also looking into how infected ticks relate to Maine’s weather patterns.

They say with so much bare ground this past winter, especially in southern Maine, ticks showed up earlier.

"I think it's really concerning because you know, there was a time when you could not worry about them, granted it was cold and snowy, but you could go out in the woods and not think that you really had to do tick checks," MaineHealth Vector Ecologist Chuck Lubelczyk said.

"Whenever you get open ground showing, bare ground, you could come in contact with a tick,” MaineHealth Staff Scientist Susan Elias said. “So at least in the southern tier of the state where there's not as much snow, that's one way that we might be seeing a change."

Scientists say ticks like wet weather, and they tend to live in invasive shrubbery.