It's time to start taking precautions.
There’s evidence that some invasive plants may be particularly good places for ticks to await passing animals. That’s because invasive species tend to be ones that can overwhelm the competition and dominate the forest understory, says Scott Williams, an ecologist at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station in New Haven. So these plants are often found growing in large thickets or tangles of vines that create a shady, humid shelter for ticks.
One such offender is Japanese barberry, an ornamental shrub that was introduced to New England in the late 1800s and has since spread to 32 states. This plant offers a perfect storm of conditions that are ideal for blacklegged ticks, Williams says. Not only does it grow in dense infestations, but it is just the right height to give ticks a great perch from which to grab deer as they brush past. To make matters worse, barberry is “highly unpalatable” to deer, Williams says.
Of course, native plants can and do harbor ticks as well. “People should beware of low growing and dense vegetation which will provide the same benefit to ticks,” Williams says. Still, native understory tends to be patchier than barberry stands, which makes it a more hostile environment for blacklegged ticks.greater numbers of blacklegged ticks in barberry stands than elsewhere in the forest. In areas where they removed Japanese barberry, the amount of ticks dropped sharply.
However, the team also saw that as time passed, the plant began to creep back in and the ticks rebounded. So if we want to keep the blacklegged tick population down, we’ll have to give areas where Japanese barberry has been eliminated a touch-up every five or so years, Williams says.is Amur honeysuckle, a woody shrub native to Asia. In this case, the problem is not that the plant creates a refuge for ticks.