Influence of habitat types in tick distribution: a case study of central Serengeti National Park

Abstract

Ticks are important vectors of disease-causing pathogens of humans, wildlife, and livestock, reducing tick abundance is an important but elusive goal this is because of their range of distribution. However, previous studies typically did not investigate factors known to affect changes and survival of tick populations and distribution in different habitat types within Serengeti national park. This study was conducted in central Serengeti National Park. Data were collected through the use of drag cloth but also the active search conducted through the use of square quadrat on five established transects in each habitat type. Microsoft Excel was used to analyze and establish the mean tick abundance while ANOVA single factor was used to test the hypothesis. A high abundance of tick species was observed in the woodland savanna followed by the Riverine habitat and lastly in open savanna grassland. Shannon wiener index revealed that riverine habitat had a diversity of (H’=1.75). followed by woodland savanna (H’=1.72) and lastly open savanna grassland (H’=1.27), By using One-way ANOVA found a significant difference in species diversity by (P ≤ 0.001). The distribution of Amblyomma gemma, Amblyomma lepidum, Hyalomma impeltum, and Rhipicepharus sp which were common to all three habitat types with Rhipicepharus pulchellus, Rhipicepharus pravus, Hyalomma spp found in woodland and savanna and riverine habitat and Hyalomma rufipes which was found only in only Riverine habitat. Finally, the use of Pearson correlation Analysis (PCA) on environmental parameters revealed that humidity (P=0.764e-04) strongly correlated to the high species, and temperature (P=2.19e 13) correlated strongly to low species diversity in the area. Tick control measures should consider the nature of the habitat which will allow tick control based on their distribution in a respective habitat where the common method for tick control such as the use of prescribed burning can’t work.