Mapping the Lone Star’s Northern March
Climate change is propelling the lone star tick's habitat northward. This expansion poses a major public health threat, as a single bite can trigger alpha-gal syndrome, a life-altering allergy to red meat. You can explore the northern expansion of the lone star tick for yourself on Lone Star Tick: The Frontier - an impressive mapped visualization of citizen-science tick observations over time. The map allows users to watch the tick's northern frontier advance across the United States, revealing how the leading edge of its range has shifted north by around 66 kilometres over the last decade. The project does not simply map tick sightings, but actually tackles one of the biggest challenges in citizen-science data: observer bias. A raw map of lone star tick observations would largely reflect where people are using apps like iNaturalist - clustering heavily around major cities and popular hiking trailheads - rather than where the ticks are actually spreading. To overcome this p...
