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Fecal NIRS: detection of tick infestations in cattle and horses.
Abstract: Anti-tick treatments are often applied concurrent to routine livestock management practices with little regard to actual infestation levels. Prescription treatments against ticks on grazing cattle would be facilitated by non-invasive detection methods. One such method is fecal near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). Four studies utilizing cattle (Bos spp.) and one with horses (Equus caballus) fed varying diets and infested with either Amblyomma americanum, A. maculatum, A. cajennense or Dermacentor albipictus were conducted to determine the ability of fecal NIRS to identify samples from animals with (High stress) and without (Low stress) a tick burden. Discriminant analysis of each individual trial resulted in R(2)>0.80. Similar analyses utilizing all combinations of four studies, predicting group membership in the remaining study, yielded R(2)>0.80, but correct determinations for Low and High tick stress samples of only 53.4 and 60.1%, respectively. All five trials were combined and a random 10 or 25% of the samples were removed from the calibration. As in the previous calibrations, a high degree of discrimination was achieved (R(2)>0.89). The validation samples were correctly identified at 91.7% for Low stress and 96.3% for High stress, respectively. Difficulties in detecting differences in fecal samples due to confounding effects of trial were overcome by combining calibration sets. Overall, differences in fecal NIR spectra apparently due to tick stress were accurately detected across diet, host species, and tick species.
Publication Date: 2006-11-13 PubMed ID: 17097809DOI: 10.1016/j.vetpar.2006.09.018Google Scholar: Lookup The Equine Research Bank provides access to a large database of publicly available scientific literature. Inclusion in the Research Bank does not imply endorsement of study methods or findings by Mad Barn.
- Journal Article
- Validation Study
Summary
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The research article examines the effectiveness of fecal near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in detecting tick infestations in cattle and horses, which could facilitate prescription treatments for ticks in grazing animals.
Fecal Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) as a Detection Method
In the current state of livestock management practices, anti-tick treatments are often applied without much consideration of the actual levels of infestation. The researchers sought to improve this through a non-invasive detection method via fecal near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS). NIRS offers a unique and efficient approach to evaluating the presence of ticks in grazing cattle and horses without invasive procedures.
The NIRS Study
- The study involved four trials with cattle and a single trial involving horses. The animals were subjected to varying diets and were exposed to different species of ticks.
- Infestation levels for the animals were categorized as High stress (with tick burden) and Low stress (without tick burden). The aim was to determine whether NIRS could accurately distinguish between these two categories.
Results of the NIRS Study
- Discriminant analysis of each individual trial showed promise with R(2) values exceeding 0.80. This suggests a high degree of correlation between the observed data and the model predictions.
- When data from several studies were combined, the accuracy in identifying Low and High stress samples was lower (53.4% and 60.1% respectively).
- However, when combined calibration sets were used, and 10-25% of the samples were removed from the calibration, a much higher degree of discrimination was achieved with R(2) values exceeding 0.89.
- Validation samples were correctly identified at a much higher rate — 91.7% for Low stress and 96.3% for High stress conditions.
Conclusion of the NIRS Study
This research demonstrated that Near Infrared Spectroscopy can accurately detect differences in fecal samples attributable to tick stress across a variety of diets, host species, and tick species. The results suggest potential for the non-invasive NIRS method to facilitate effective field-based tick management strategies in livestock.
Cite This Article
APA
Tolleson DR, Teel PD, Stuth JW, Strey OF, Welsh TH, Carstens GE.
(2006).
Fecal NIRS: detection of tick infestations in cattle and horses.
Vet Parasitol, 144(1-2), 146-152.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.vetpar.2006.09.018 Publication
Researcher Affiliations
- Department of Rangeland Ecology & Management, Mail Stop 2126 Animal Industries Bldg., Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843-2126, USA. tolleson@cnrit.tamu.edu
MeSH Terms
- Animals
- Calibration
- Cattle
- Cattle Diseases / diagnosis
- Discriminant Analysis
- Feces / chemistry
- Female
- Horse Diseases / diagnosis
- Horses
- Male
- Predictive Value of Tests
- Reproducibility of Results
- Sensitivity and Specificity
- Species Specificity
- Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / methods
- Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / standards
- Spectroscopy, Near-Infrared / veterinary
- Tick Infestations / diagnosis
- Tick Infestations / veterinary
Citations
This article has been cited 4 times.- Kho EA, Fernandes JN, Kotze AC, Fox GP, Sikulu-Lord MT, Beasley AM, Moore SS, James PJ. Influence of environmental factors on the detection of blood in sheep faeces using visible-near-infrared spectroscopy as a measure of Haemonchus contortus infection. Parasit Vectors 2020 Nov 23;13(1):591.
- Sharma N, Singh V, Shyma KP, Parsani HR. Comparative efficacy of commercial preparation of deltamethrin and cypermethrin against Ornithodoros spp. of North Gujarat. J Parasit Dis 2017 Dec;41(4):1139-1142.
- Chen LD, Carter ED, Urban MP, Merolle CT, Chen DM, Kouba AJ, Gray MJ, Miller DL, Kouba CK. Near-infrared spectroscopy as a diagnostic screening tool for lethal chytrid fungus in eastern newts. Commun Biol 2025 Apr 17;8(1):625.
- Chen LD, Caprio MA, Chen DM, Kouba AJ, Kouba CK. Enhancing predictive performance for spectroscopic studies in wildlife science through a multi-model approach: A case study for species classification of live amphibians. PLoS Comput Biol 2024 Feb;20(2):e1011876.
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