Pittsburg State, like many universities and colleges are quiet during summer break, although the work continues for professors like Dr. Anu Ghosh of Pitt State’s Biology department. When temperatures warm up and more of us head outdoors the number of emergency room visits due to tick bites and their symptoms rise. Dr. Ghosh says that while ticks may be small, don’t underestimate their bites.
"Ticks are small, that’s for sure. But since I’m trained as a microbiologist, I’m comfortable working with smaller stuff even.
It’s more like ticks pose some danger and that’s why we need to be really careful.
This season is particularly special, we are seeing some up-ticking of virus contraction in our county and in the surrounding counties."
It’s not that southeast Kansas hasn’t had tick populations previously but that populations are growing, similar to the migration patterns of animals that previously weren’t seen in the area, like armadillos but are now commonly spotted due to our warming climate.
"These are like rare viruses that take hold. So there could be some climate changes or some host drivers that are changing with the time and then they are making these areas as hotspots, where we are seeing more incidents of these viruses."
Dr. Ghosh can’t do all of the work on her own. This summer she enlisted the help of Pittsburg State Graduate student Brayden Letterman.
" We do field work. We go out and collect the ticks, and we also do lab work where we sort them.
And going forward we’re going to do pathogen testing as well, but in the past we’ve been doing it with collaborators."
So how do you track and trap ticks? Dr. Ghosh explains the process.
"The field work is pretty extensive. In the past we did two different types of traps. One is called a dry ice trap and the other is called flagging.
It was a long term project funded by NSF (National Science Foundation) so I had several different undergrads on board over the time.
It’s been like 4 years. It’s the fourth year of the project since it has been taking place."
According to the CDC’s Tick resource page, there are at least nine types of ticks in the US. They are the Blacklegged, Lone Star, American Dog, Brown Dog, Groundhog, Gulf Coast, Rocky Mountain Wood, Soft and Western Blacklegged ticks.
Dr. Ghosh says that she has to watch students carefully when doing field work due to the high density of ticks in southeast Kansas.
"The students need to be continuously supervised in the field. Because you’re really taking them to the places where they are going to get exposed to a high density of ticks. So every time we’re in the field I generally lead the field team and then the students help out in collection.
And then we bring them in the lab and do the introductory process here, using different types of microscopes. And then our collaborator at Oklahoma State University identifies the pathogens. But now we have a contractual project with KDHE."
Pittsburg State has a robust undergraduate research curriculum in biology. Students such as Brayden are highly motivated and inquisitive and gain quality first hand research experience during their undergraduate degrees.
Without students' participation, research goals could not be achieved. Brayden explains in further details the process of tick research.
"The two-ways that we’ve captured the ticks for this project and the projects in the past we’ve used something called flagging and dragging, where you rub a cloth against grass on the ground.
And ticks, quest, which means they are trying to get on to animals so they crawl to the tips of grass blades. And this actually simulates, pretty accurately, the human risk in a given area.
If you want high quantities, we’ve used dry ice on the previous projects.
So we place a piece of dry ice, on a piece of cardboard surrounded by tape and it supplements releasing carbon dioxide and that simulates humans breathing."
Brayden says that through the dry ice process they can collect 100’s of ticks.
Dr. Ghosh notes it’s not only important to trap adult ticks but ticks in every stage of development.
"The larva you get later in the season like August, September during that time, but if you go out in the field with us in a wooded area and put a dry ice trap within an hour you can attract 100’s."
According to the CDC, ticks can transmit more than a dozen pathogens that can cause human disease.
Dr. Ghosh and her students’ work in southeast Kansas is important to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in identifying the types of ticks that reside here and the dangers they carry.
"The KDHE is more interested in the real life risk when the hikers or bikers are on the trail and that’s why in this project we are using only the flags and trying to brush, both sides of the trails and see, that if you’re walking your dog what’s the chance of contracting ticks or any disease from that area."
Thanks to Pittsburg State Biology Professor Dr. Anu Ghosh and Graduate Student Brayden Letterman for speaking to me for this week's Crimson and Gold Connection.
