Association of Different Genetic Types of Francisella-Like Organisms with the Rocky Mountain Wood Tick (Dermacentor andersoni) and the American Dog Tick (Dermacentor variabilis) in Localities Near Their Northern Distributional Limits
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Dermacentor andersoni and Dermacentor variabilis from allopatric and sympatric populations near their northern distributional limits were examined for the presence of Francisella species using molecular techniques that targeted 373 bp of the 16S rRNA gene. Although there was no evidence for the presence of Francisella tularensis in any tick, Francisella-like endosymbionts (FLEs) were common in D. andersoni and D. variabilis adults and immatures. A significantly greater proportion of female ticks contained FLEs compared to male ticks. In addition, significantly more D. variabilis adult individuals contained multiple FLE sequence types than did D. andersoni adults. Ten different types of FLEs were identified based on the sequence data, which has implications for diagnostic tests and epidemiological studies of F. tularensis in tick populations in Canada. The three most prevalent types of FLEs have been detected previously in D. andersoni or D. variabilis from other parts of their distributional ranges, whereas the other seven FLE types have not been reported previously. A comparison of the FLEs from both allopatric and sympatric populations of these two tick species provided insight into the relative host-specificity and the modes of transmission of these tick-borne bacteria. In general, each FLE type was specific for one tick species, suggesting vertical transmission of each bacterium. However, there were a few instances of potential cross-transfer of two FLE types to the other tick species at locations where D. andersoni and D. variabilis occurred in sympatry, suggesting that there may be occasional horizontal transmission of some FLEs.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".