51. Tick habits and habitats with Dr. Rebecca Trout Fryxell

Dr. Rebecca Trout Fryxell is a medical and veterinary entomologist, researcher and associate professor at the University of Tennessee and joins us from Knoxville, Tennessee. In this podcast, Dr. Trout Fryxell talks about tick biology, tick populations in the southeastern US, and strategies to keep ticks away from people in our backyards and school yards.  Dr. Trout Fryxell became interested in Veterinary entomology when she learned that even a very small organism, such as a caterpillar, could have a very big impact on something many times its size such as a horse. That sparked her interest to study vectors such as mosquitoes, ticks and flies with the aim of helping to reduce the harm they can cause. She explains that a vector is an arthropod that acts as a bridge for a pathogen to move from point A to point B.Read the full show notes!