Soft Ticks and Associated Pathogens: Acquiring Knowledge to Advance in Their Control

Dear Colleagues,

Ticks are classified into two main families, the Argasidae (soft ticks) and Ixodidae (hard ticks), which differ in numerous anatomical, biological, and ecological characteristics. New argasid species have recently been described, but soft ticks show much lower species diversity than hard ticks (∼200 vs. ∼700), while their systematics is less clearly established than that of ixodids and remains a controversial issue.

The typical nidicolous/endophilic lifestyle and short blood feeding duration of soft ticks helps them pass generally unnoticed, such that their impact in public and animal health is generally underestimated. However, they can cause severe direct injury to their hosts and, more notably, are efficient reservoirs and vectors of numerous pathogens including important viruses, such as the African swine fever virus, Borrelia spp. spirochetes that cause human relapsing fever, fowl spirochetosis, and bovine abortion, and an increasing range of pathogenic rickettsiae. In addition to known pathogens, modern molecular tools are discovering new, emerging species, or strains of microbes whose pathogenic potential needs to be investigated.

Successful control of argasids and their transmitted pathogens requires deep knowledge of the ecology and biology of these ticks, from the molecular to the ecosystem level. Accurate knowledge of the distribution and dynamics of argasids is important to define risk areas for argasid-borne diseases and to establish adequate control measures. In this context, tick surveillance emerges as a permanent need, which, in turn, may help the development of predictive distribution models for argasids.

Control of argasid populations with chemical acaricides is inefficient and this has encouraged the development of alternative control methods, among which tick vaccines are considered the most promising. System biology and vacunomics approaches are increasingly being applied to argasids to know the molecules and biological processes involved in tick physiology and tick–host–pathogen relationships, and to identify antigen targets for vaccine development. Additionally, investigation of soft tick microbiomes, which are still unexplored, will reveal the function and influence of such microbial communities on vector biology including vector competence, likely opening new ways to transmission-blocking vaccine development.

The aim of this Special Issue is to update and deepen the knowledge related to soft ticks and their associated pathogens.

Dr. Ricardo Pérez-Sánchez
Dr. Ana Oleaga
Guest Editors

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