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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

Import to your local calendar

CP10: Wildlife 2: Mammals, Birds, Lizards & Wetas 15 min talk

Time:

Wednesday, 01/July/2026:

11:00am - 11:15am

Session Chair: Haylee Crawford-Weaver, DCCEEW
Session Chair: Nicholas Fountain-Jones, University of Tasmania

Location: Lecture Theatre 3

Boulevard Room 1

Presentations

First in vitro feeding of an Australian wildlife tick, Ixodes hirsti, provides insights into host cues, feeding biology, morphology and changes in microbiome structure.

Vincent C. Duru^1,2,3, Bahar E. Mustafa¹, Abdul Ghafar¹, Ian Beveridge¹, Charles G. Gauci¹, Khawla Elati^2,3, Ard M. Nijhof^2,3, Abdul Jabbar¹

¹Department of Veterinary Biosciences, Melbourne Veterinary School, The University of Melbourne, 250 Princes Highway Werribee, 3030, VIC, Australia; ²Institute of Parasitology and Tropical Veterinary Medicine, Freie Universität Berlin, Robert -Von-Ostertag-Str. 7, 14163 Berlin, Germany; ³Veterinary Centre for Resistance Research, Freie Universität Berlin, Robert-Von-Ostertag-Str. 8, 14163 Berlin, Germany

Artificial tick feeding systems (ATFS) provide ethical alternatives to in vivo models for studying tick biology, yet their application remains largely restricted to a few species. Ixodes hirsti, an Australian marsupial tick, remains understudied due to challenges in maintaining its life cycle under laboratory conditions. Here, we report the first successful in vitro feeding of I. hirsti larvae, and microbiome profiling combined with morphological characterisation of moulted nymphs. Larvae derived from field-collected engorged females were fed using silicone membrane supplemented with raw kangaroo hair and/or hair extract. Microbiome composition of the larvae was assessed using 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing. Nymphs were characterised using morphological (scanning electron microscopy) and molecular (targeting mitochondrial markers – cox1 and 16S) approaches. Attachment success differed significantly among treatments (p = 0.001), with hair extract yielding the highest attachment rate (71%). However, kangaroo hair improved feeding performance, reducing time to engorgement (9.17 ± 0.72 days) and increasing engorgement weight (0.91 ± 0.01 mg). Blood feeding reduced microbial richness and evenness, increased microbiome variability (p < 0.001), and enriched Stenotrophomonas, suggesting feeding-associated shifts in microbial composition. This study provides a proof-of-concept for a host-free platform for studying Australian wildlife ticks, enabling controlled investigations of vector biology and tick–microbe interactions.