Fig. 2

Relationship between the density of Ixodes ricinus and the availability of deer. Tick density differed significantly (P < 0.05) between 17 forest plots with deer and 3 plots without (a-c), but did not significantly increase with the availability of deer across the 17 plots with deer (d-f), for larvae (a, d), nymphs (b, e) and adults (c, f). Dotted lines represent the generalized linear mixed model fits for non-significant models. +0.1 was added to the larval densities in the graph to overcome problems due to zeroes and the logarithmic scale on the y-axis