Proteomics Approach to the Study of Cattle Tick Adaptation to White Tailed Deer

Table 1

R. microplus infestations in WTD and cattle.

Experimental group	R. microplus (Media Joya strain)
	No. of ticks	Tick weight (mg)	Oviposition	Fertility
WTD	381±195	226±15	85±8	0.05±0.00
Cattle	841±94	297±19	109±10	0.40±0.00
Cattle/WTD ratio; (% reduction in ticks fed on WTD when compared to ticks fed on cattle)	2.2*; (55%)	1.3*; (24%)	1.3*; (24%)	8.3*; (88%)

Deer (𝑁=4) and cattle (𝑁=5) were infested with 10,000 R. microplus larvae/animal applied individually to each animal in separate cotton cells attached to the back of the animals. Adult female tick number, tick weight (mg), oviposition (egg weight (mg)/tick), and egg fertility (larvae weight/egg weight) were compared by 𝜒²-test (tick numbers) or Student’s 𝑡-test with unequal variance (tick weight, oviposition, and fertility) between groups (^∗𝑃<0.01). Data were obtained from Canales et al. [13] and Carreón et al. [14] for cattle and WTD, respectively.