Research
The Westside Nature Preserve is not only a beautiful hiking destination but also an important research site for 吃瓜头条.
It is home to one of the 吃瓜头条 Tick Lab鈥檚 monitoring locations, which has been actively sampled since 2011. These long-term monitoring efforts led to the first documented detection of the exotic Asian longhorned tick (Haemaphysalis longicornis) in Connecticut in 2018. It is also used for the Tick Lab’s tick gardens, where Sandra Zapata-Ramirez, a recent 吃瓜头条 master student of Biological Integrative Diversity, elucidated the effects of mowing on nymphal blacklegged ticks. She was able to use the preserve to mimic the conditions of a backyard and then compare different mowing practices on tick abundance.听
