Abundance of Ixodes ricinus and prevalence of Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. in the nature reserve Siebengebirge, Germany, in comparison to three former studies from 1978 onwards

Table 1 Overview of the methodological differences in the Ixodes ricinus studies in the Siebengebirge in 1987, 1989, 2001, 2003, 2007 and 2008

Methods	1987/89*	2001	2003	2007	2008
Months¹	Apr-Oct	May, Aug-Oct	May-Nov	May-Nov	May-Nov
Frequency	monthly	weekly	weekly	monthly	monthly
Size	100m²	100m²	225m²	100m²	100m²
Air temp.²	≥16°C	≥16°C	8°C-25°C	15°C-25°C	15°C-23°C
Humidity²	≥80%	≥80%	57%-74%	45%-85%	52%-85%
DNA extraction	n/a³	Ammonia solution	n/a	Ammonia solution	Chelex 100 resin solution
Borrelia detection	IFA⁺	Simple, modified PCR [45]	n/a	Nested PCR [44]	Nested PCR [44]
		Nested PCR [44]
		Modified PCR [46]
		IFA [15, 38]
Borrelia genotyping	n/a	Reverse line blotting⁴[44]	n/a	Reverse line blotting⁵[44, 47]	Reverse line blotting⁵[44, 47]

*The years 1987 and 1989 are listed together because the same methods were used in both study years for the study of I. ricinus abundances and Borrelia prevalences.
¹ Tick collections were carried out in the respective months (Apr = April, Aug = August, Oct = October, Nov = November).
²Air temperatures and relative humidities were measured 5cm above the ground at the study sites in all years.
³n/a = not applicable.
⁴B. burgdorferi s.l., B. burgdorferi s.s., B. garinii, B. afzelii and B. valaisiana were identified by reverse line blotting according to Rijpkema et al. [44].
⁵B. burgdorferi s.l., B. burgdorferi s.s., B. garinii and B. afzelii were identified by reverse line blotting according to Rijpkema et al. [44] and DNA probes for B. garinii, B. valaisiana, B. lusitaniae, B. spielmanii and B. bissettii were designed according to Gern et al. [47].
⁺ IFA = Immunofluorescence assay.

ISSN: 1756-3305