bugquestions.bsky.social
@bugquestions.bsky.social
We do insect news, if you're into that kinda thing.
November 28, 2024 at 8:49 PM
Either way, the current idea is that the habitat on the West side of the river does something to help out RMSF while the environment on the East side of the river benefits R. peacockii.

Since R. peacockii outcompetes RMSF, you get a separation between two close environments.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
This is, of course, a pretty simplistic way to look at it.

What hosts the ticks have access to, even the chemicals in the environment from plants, the bacteria the ticks are exposed to, etc can have significant effects on the bacteria inside the ticks.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
Ticks are cold-blooded, so their body temperature is always the same as the environment.

Anything living inside of them will be exposed to similar environments.

If the tick is cold, so is the bacteria.

If the tick is hot, so is the bacteria.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
These are older pictures, so we can just look at Google Earth.

The difference between the two habitats is still pretty obvious.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
If we look at a topographical map, we can see that the two sides of the river are VERY different.

On the West side, there's a lot of mountains.

The East side is flatter, less mountainous, and is just a completely different habitat.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
Getting outcompeted for the next generation of hosts explains why some tick populations don't get RMSF.

So, if there’s a stronger competitor, why does RMSF even exist if these ticks can easily cross the river on their hosts?

This question hasn't recieved as much attention.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
RMSF has a harder time maintaining it’s foothold in the cycle, and R. peacockii takes advantage of a natural ‘choke point’.

Eggs can’t maintain both bacteria at the same time.

R. peacockii tends to win this fight and outcompetes RMSF when they’re in a shared habitat.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
R. rickettsiae is pretty adept at getting into the ticks through their mouths, but R. peacockii is really good at passing on through the ovaries.

R. rickettsiae makes the ticks really sick, while R. peacockii is less hard on the host.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
R. rickettsiae is the one we know as RMSF.

The other, lesser known bacteria, is R. peacockii, or what’s called the East Side Agent

Both of these bacteria compete for space in the next generation of tick, but they do so in very different ways.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
We want to understand how these bacteria work…and over the years, the Bitterroot valley has turned into a kind of laboratory for how bacteria compete inside ticks.

You see, in the Bitterroot valley, there are two different bacteria circulating in these ticks.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
However, ticks can also pass germs onto their eggs through their ovaries.

This is called horizontal, or transovarial transmission.

Both of these are important to RMSF’s survival, because dual transmission increases the chance of completing another cycle in the wild.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
There’s two ways that a tickborne disease can be transmitted.

The first one is the one that everyone’s familiar with.

An infected tick bites a host, and passes the germ onto a new generation of ticks when new individuals feed.

This is horizontal transmission.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
To really understand this, we need to explore how tick-borne diseases navigate their world.

Parasites don’t live in an environment free of competition.

Sure, they’re competing with their hosts for nutrients.

They’re ALSO competing with things inside the hosts.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
So this all begs the question...why was the East side of the Bitterroot river safe from RMSF?

We still don't actually know.

Let me explain...
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
He named this bacteria after himself, Rickettsia rickettsii.

The disease would go on to be well studied, and go by a few other names. However, over time, the scientific community settled on a name originally published in 1903.

Rocky Mountian Spotted Fever
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
So he drew blood from William Langdon, stained it with a chemical called Eosin, and found bacteria.

He dissected ticks in the area, found the bacteria.

He also found that he could pass the disease among guinea pigs.

He also found bacteria in tick eggs.

web.archive.org/web/20110722...
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
t didn't take too long before he met a local family living in black measles territory. Their son, William, 10 years old, had caught the disease.

When Ricketts came to visit he found...ticks.

Lots of ticks. Everyone in the family had been bitten by them.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM
At the same time as this was going on, a young microbiologist by the name of Howard Taylor Ricketts set up shop in the area.

With few laboratory supplies-all of his experiments were done in a tent-he began to look for the cause of this perplexing disease.
November 28, 2024 at 8:17 PM