Fiona Hunter will give a talk on Feb. 28 about the emerging problem of ticks in Niagara.

The professor of Biological Sciences will be the guest speaker at a meeting of the Peninsula Field Naturalists Club.

Hunter’s talk will discuss how ticks are second only to mosquitoes as vectors of disease to humans. The black-legged tick (aka deer tick) has made its way into the Niagara Region and many of these ticks carry the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

The Cairns Family Health and Bioscience Research Complex will allow Hunter’s research group to examine the effect that Borrelia burgdorferi (the causative agent of Lyme disease) might have on the longevity and behaviour of infected ticks.

In addition to ticks, Hunter maintains her long-running research into the evolution of sugar-feeding in biting flies. She currently teaches courses in Introductory Biology and Entomology and has four graduate students who conduct their research under her supervision.