@race2extinct.bsky.social:
Ticks are thriving—not despite collapse, but because of it. When ecosystems break, parasitic species like ticks surge. Few tick predators. More mice/deer. No checks. Collapse isn’t symmetrical—it rewards the few that can feed off the ruin.
Experts warn of NYC tick explosion in 2025: Here’s the surprising cause by Ann Marie Barron | email hidden; JavaScript is required, Apr. 27, 2025, silive
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — New York City residents should prepare for a tremendous surge in tick numbers this year — and Lyme disease — environmental experts say, blaming it on oak trees.
It may sound crazy, but the city’s more than 130,000 oak trees in 2023 set us up for huge numbers of black-legged ticks this year, the kind that carry Lyme disease, said Joellen Lampman, of the New York State Integrated Pest Management program.
“Basically, you should be on guard,‘’ she said, explaining that 2023 in New York City was a mast year, a year in which Oak trees drop huge volumes of acorns. This happens every three to five years.
Those acorns kept small rodents alive through the tough winter, so summer 2024 saw a booming population of white-footed mice and other small mammals — the perfect hosts to black-legged ticks in their larvae stage, she said, quoting the research of Dr. Richard S. Ostfeld.
But now, in 2025, we’re looking at a really bad tick year, Lampman said.
Since fewer of those mice and other small mammals survived, the ticks this spring and summer are in a predicament, since they need a new host in every stage of their life cycle.
Lampman said this makes humans more likely to brush up against them and become unsuspecting hosts.
“Ticks are so, so, good at just hanging onto their energy and just waiting for something to cross its path,‘’ she said.
Confirmed mast year in NYC
Though it was not a mast year throughout the state, the New York City Parks Department confirmed that 2023 was indeed a mast year for Oak trees in the Big Apple.
Ostfeld, a disease ecologist with the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, has been studying the ecology of infectious diseases, such as Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses for 33 years, continuously monitoring acorns, ticks, mammals and tick-borne pathogens.
“Our research demonstrates that the main risk factor for people in terms of exposure to tick-borne disease is the abundance of infected black-legged ticks in the nymph stage, the middle stage in the life cycle of black-legged tick,‘’ he said.
Remember those larvae from last year?
They’re nymphs now. And present in large numbers, Ostfeld said, with many carrying Lyme disease they picked up from the white-footed mice inhabiting wooded areas.
White-footed mice are their preferred host, he said, adding: “Other hosts are much better at killing the ticks that try to feed off them … the mice, they just don’t bother to kill off the ticks.”
But people are a good alternative, according to scientists, because we often don’t notice them and don’t protect ourselves against them by covering up and wearing insect repellent and treated clothing.
And while the growing deer population is also a dominant host of black-legged ticks that carry and spread Lyme disease, those animals don’t play host until the ticks are in their adult stage of life, when they’re looking to reproduce, Ostfeld said, beginning the life cycle all over again in the late summer and fall.
Tick season never really ends, the ticks just go through different life stages at different times of the year, Lampman told the Advance/SILive.com. And this past winter’s cold weather did nothing to deter them, experts said.
Ostfeld said his region of the state, the Hudson Valley, did not experience a mast year in 2023. But New York City did experience one, according to local sources, including the Parks Department.
Staten Island, the “Borough of Parks,” is home to more than 14,000 oak trees in its parks and along its streets, according to the Parks Department’s most recent tree census, which took place in 2015. That number doesn’t count heavily forested areas, the department’s spokesperson said.
Beware of nymphs
Making matters worse for New Yorkers in coming weeks is the fact that nymphs are very tiny and hard to spot, as they are the size of a poppy seed. And they are most active when people are outdoors and wearing less clothing after a long, cold winter, the scientists said.
Roughly 30% of nymphs are infected with Lyme, Ostfeld said. ”They’re responsible for a great majority of tick-borne illness throughout our area,‘’ he added.
Lampman agreed, saying most people will be diagnosed with Lyme in the late summer, so they tend to think of Lyme as a summer problem.
But most actually acquired the virus in the spring, she said.
Here’s how to tell if your yard is home to ticks, according to experts
Since the small mammal population has “crashed,‘’ Lampman said, ”Expect fewer animals, but more ticks.”
