Mapping the Potential Distribution of Ticks in the Western Kanto Region, Japan: Predictions Based on Land-Use, Climate, and Wildlife.

Background: Tick distributions have changed rapidly with changes in human activity, land-use patterns, climate, and wildlife distributions over the last few decades.

Methods: To estimate potential distributions of ticks, we conducted a tick survey at 134 locations in western Kanto, Japan. We estimated the potential distributions of six tick species ( Koch, 1844; Neumann, 1897; Hoogstraal, 1969; Neumann, 1901; Saito, 1969; and Neumann, 1899) using MaxEnt modeling based on climate patterns, land-use patterns, and the distributions of five common wildlife species: sika deer ( Temminck, 1838), wild boar ( Linnaeus, 1758), raccoon ( Linnaeus, 1758), Japanese raccoon dog ( Gray, 1834), and masked palm civet ( C.