Evidence for Borrelia bavariensis Infections of Ixodes uriae within Seabird Colonies of the North Atlantic Ocean
Bibliographic record
Abstract
ABSTRACT The first report of members of the spirochete genus Borrelia in the seabird tick, Ixodes uriae , and seabird colonies occurred during the early 1990s. Since then, Borrelia spp. have been detected in these ticks and seabird colonies around the world. To date, the primary species detected has been Borrelia garinii , with rare occurrences of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto and Borrelia lusitaniae. During our research on Borrelia and I. uriae in seabird colonies of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, we have identified Borrelia bavariensis in I. uriae . To our knowledge, B. bavariensis has previously been found only in the Eurasian tick species Ixodes persulcatus and Ixodes ricinus , and it was believed to be a rodent-specific Borrelia ecotype. We found B. bavariensis within I. uriae from three seabird colonies over three calendar years. We also reanalyzed B. garinii sequences collected from I. uriae from Eurasian seabird colonies and determined that sequences from two Russian seabird colonies likely also represent B. bavariensis . The Canadian B. bavariensis sequences from I. uriae analyzed in this study cluster with previously described sequences from Asia. Overall, this is an important discovery that illustrates and expands the range of hosts and vectors for B. bavariensis , and it raises questions regarding the possible mechanisms of pathogen dispersal from Asia to North America. IMPORTANCETo our knowledge, this is the first documentation of B. bavariensis outside Eurasia. Additionally, the bacterium was found in a marine ecosystem involving the seabird tick I. uriae and its associated seabird hosts. This indicates that the epizootiology of B. bavariensis transmission is much different from what had been described, with this species previously believed to be a rodent-specific ecotype, and it indicates that this pathogen is established, or establishing, much more widely.
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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 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 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".