Consistent, Long-Term Use Improves Effectiveness

By Carolyn Bernhardt

As tick-borne diseases like Lyme disease continue to spread in the U.S., finding effective management strategies is more critical than ever. Tick tubes—devices that provide mice with acaricide-laced nesting material—have emerged as a potential tool for tick management. However, their effectiveness has been inconsistent, prompting the need for refined strategies.

A new study, published last week in the Journal of Medical Entomology, seeks to enhance the efficacy of these tick-control tubes. The research, led by Erika T. Machtinger, Ph.D., an associate professor of entomology at Penn State University, delves into optimizing tick tube placement.

“In my role as an extension educator, I’m often educating about the options available for tick management,” Machtinger says. “Tick tubes are one of the few that homeowners can feel empowered to use. However, previous studies had been very lukewarm about their efficacy.”

After reviewing some of the papers, Machtinger and her team noticed that deployment was usually only twice a year. Also, tick tubes were often used and tested in areas with noticeable populations of chipmunks, who don’t use cotton as nesting material like mice but are still reservoir hosts for pathogens that could cause tick-borne diseases.

“In short, the tubes had been placed to address the entomological risk but didn’t necessarily account for the ecology of the reservoir hosts,” says Machtinger.

With a goal of providing clearer guidelines for improving tick-management strategies, the team spent two years investigating how various factors—such as deployment, cotton replacement frequency, and spacing between tubes—affect tick tube performance. Their recently published study provides clear recommendations for optimizing tick-control tube use.

Seasonal, Consistent Practices

“Tick-control tubes were effective at reducing tick burdens on mice within one season of deployment, regardless of when they were initially placed,” says Machtinger. Still, based on their data, she says the team recommends deploying tubes from early spring through the fall and replacing them monthly. “We’ve sometimes seen tubes emptied in less than two weeks,” she says. Plus, when the team deployed tubes into November, plots with the tubes had fewer ticks in the spring than those without, indicating a beneficial early-season effect from late-season deployment the previous year.

While the timing of initial deployment holds some importance, consistent and long-term use proves more effective than concentrating on the specific season. The scientists highlighted the importance of regularly replacing the cotton inside the tubes, with more frequent replacements linked to better tick control. “Cotton use from tick tubes was highest in late September and October, coinciding with peak mouse populations and increased demand for nesting materials,” Machtinger says.

Meanwhile, the team of experts saw that the distance between tick tubes—which they tested at distances of 10, 20, 30, and 40 meters—did not significantly impact tick management performance, indicating that other factors may be more crucial. Still, Machtinger says, “Even though there were no differences among the distances when mouse populations increase, the closer distances may leave some buffer, so not all the cotton was used quickly.”

Research Reflections and Future Directions

“I think the most surprising finding was really how clean the data was,” says Machtinger. “Every season we put tubes out, there was a significant difference in tick numbers for rodent hosts in the next trapping round each time. Field data, in general, is usually much more messy!”

She acknowledges, however,  that the study didn’t measure the density of infected or questing tick nymphs, so while the team found a significant reduction in tick abundance on white-footed mice, they can’t confirm whether the year-round use of tick tubes also affects the infection rates of ticks. So, now the research team is starting further studies to examine how tick-control tubes applied with these recommendations affect tick nymph density and pathogen infection rates. They also highlight the need for broader studies across different regions to validate these findings.

“Ecology is local,” says Machtinger. “Our treatment area has fewer chipmunks than some other habitats, so results may be not be the same depending on the local population of hosts.”

Machtinger says the study’s findings, necessitating monthly reminders to replace the tubes, might help people remember other tick management strategies more often, as well, like wearing repellent.

“Because [tubes] are one of the few options that homeowners can use, we hope that this gives them the confidence to participate in tick management,” Machtinger says, “ideally as part of an integrated plan that includes landscape modification and personal protection.”

Carolyn Bernhardt, M.A., is a freelance science writer and editor based in Portland, Oregon. Email: [email protected].

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