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Conference Agenda

Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).

Daily Overview

Session

CP22: Horses & Cows 2 - 10 min talks
Location: Lecture Theatre 2
Session Chair: Alicja (Ala) Tabor, The University Of Queensland
Session Chair: Sara Taylor, QIMR Berghofer

Presentation 1

A host-free in vitro membrane feeding system for an emerging tick vector, Haemaphysalis longicornis

Abdul Ghafar¹, Bahar E Mustafa¹, Charles G Gauci¹, Ian Beveridge¹, Robin B Gasser¹, Ard M Nijhof^2,3, Abdul Jabbar¹

1: The University of Melbourne, Australia; 2: Institute of Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; 3: Veterinary Centre for Resistance Research, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

Haemaphysalis longicornis is a parthenogenetic three-host tick of increasing veterinary and public health importance and is the principal vector of Theileria orientalis in Australasia. Experimental research on this species has been constrained by reliance on live vertebrate hosts, limiting scalability, standardisation and ethical feasibility. This study established a reproducible, host-free in vitro membrane feeding system for adult and nymphal stages. Ticks were fed using a silicone membrane-based system under controlled laboratory conditions. Field-collected adult females were evaluated across six independent experiments for attachment, engorgement, oviposition, egg hatchability and bloodmeal-to-egg conversion efficiency. Nymphal feeding performance was assessed across five experiments. Adult feeding was robust, with 67% (35/52) attachment and 74.3% (26/35) engorgement. Engorged females reached a mean weight of 161 mg and produced a mean egg mass of 67 mg (40% conversion efficiency), with >92% hatchability. Nymphs showed consistently high performance, with 88.4% (76/86) attachment, 97.4% (74/76) engorgement and 90.5% (67/74) moulting success. Engorgement typically occurred within 3–5 days post-attachment, and moulting within 2–4 weeks post-detachment. This system enables controlled, ethical and scalable experimentation and provides a powerful platform for studies of tick physiology, vector competence, acaricide screening and pathogen–vector interactions.