Senior Research Associate University of Maine Greenbush, Maine
The state of Maine, USA, has seen a five-fold increase in Lyme disease incidence over the past decade due to a combination of climate change and an expanding human-wildlife interface accompanying land development. Active forest management may alter individual risk of exposure to tick-borne disease and the spread and persistence of tick-borne disease in the forest landscape. In southern Maine, over 80 percent of forested land is managed and used for hunting, timber extraction, and outdoor recreation by non-industrial family forest landowners, creating both an urgent public health need and a unique socio-ecological context in which to investigate the effects of forest management on disease transmission. The Maine Forest Tick Survey is an interdisciplinary citizen science study with the long-term goal of identifying forest management practices that inhibit tick-borne disease transmission, are compatible with landowners’ economic interests, and may enhance other ecosystem services provided by healthy forests. Two years of data collection by over 200 volunteers demonstrated that practices such as selective timber harvesting and invasive plant removal may reduce density of pathogen-infected ticks. A parallel social science component investigated factors that determine management decisions by landowners, and whether increasing knowledge of the environmental drivers of Lyme disease transmission may motivate landowners to engage in practices that benefit the health and sustainability of the entire forest ecosystem. The results of this stakeholder-engaged social-ecological research are anticipated to inform practical and place-based recommendations to protect rural community health while sustaining a robust forest product supply chain.