The role of European big game (Capreolus capreolus and Sus scrofa) as hosts for ticks and in the epidemiological life cycle of tick-borne diseases

European wild boar and roe deer belong to the most common, synanthropic and widespread species of big game in Europe. They are potential key hosts for ticks and are hypothesized to play an important role in the life cycle of tick-borne diseases. From August 2011 to February 2014, 247 European roe deer and 344 wild boar were investigated for tick prevalence, abundance, preferred attachment sites and pathogen infections in a forest in southern Germany (the Bienwald, Rhineland-Palatinate). ...