Genospecies diversity of Lyme disease spirochetes in rodent reservoirs

To determine whether particular Borrelia burgdorferi s.l. genospecies assoc iate solely with rodent reservoir hosts, we compared the genospecies preval ence in questing nymphal Ixodes ticks with that in xenodiagnostic ticks tha t had fed as larvae on rodents captured in the same site. No genospecies wa s more prevalent in rodent-fed ticks than in questing ticks. The three main spirochete genospecies, therefore, share common rodent hosts.