ORONO, Maine — Maine could be on pace to set another record-breaking year for cases of Lyme disease. There have been 2,544 in 2024, according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The state record of 2,943 cases were reported in all of 2023.
Scientists at the University of Maine Tick Lab are stepping up their efforts to track ticks migrating into new areas of the state and determine what conditions help ticks carrying diseases thrive.
For UMaine students researching ticks, your backyard is ground zero in the battle against ticks carrying illnesses.
Sarah Manning, Madison Gordon, and Alyssa Marini have dragged for ticks on 20 residential properties since the summer. The homes, all with wooded lots, are located across Waldo, Penobscot, and Hancock counties.
The fall is the most active season for adult ticks, and the numbers prove it. On one property alone, students collected 50 deer ticks.
"One property, the ticks we collected, had many of the borrelia pathogen, borrelia burgdorferi, the agent that causes Lyme disease," Marini explained.
The data is part of her dissertation for her doctoral degree and will help homeowners take precautions.
"I wanted the residents to know what type of ticks are on their property and what pathogens are present," Marini added.
"It's imperative to have an idea of where they are and how much damage they are doing," Gordon, a wildlife management major, said.
This data will be critical as cases of Lyme disease, spread by deer ticks, continue to rise.
Maine is also seeing new record high cases of anaplasmosis and babesiosis, two common tick-borne illnesses.
Griffin Dill, an integrated pest management specialist at the University of Maine Cooperative Extension Tick Lab, says tick submissions from the public haven't spiked. Still, there has been an increase in small mammal populations. Including field mice, squirrels, moles, and shrews - all primary hosts for Lyme and other diseases.
"If we have many of those on the landscape, they can harbor high levels of these infections and transmit them back and forth to the ticks," Dill said.
The lab has set up 15 monitoring sites across the state, collecting data on tick numbers, soil and weather conditions, and wildlife. The goal is to find out what is allowing ticks and the diseases they carry to enter new regions of Maine.
Marini and her team will analyze the ticks collected for diseases and undergo a blood meal analysis to determine what kind of animals they feed on.
This underscores the importance of wearing protective clothing and using an EPA-approved repellent for these students.
"The biggest thing is checking for ticks afterward," Manning, an ecology and environmental science major, said.