Urban Recreation Areas as Foci of Tick Hazard: Multi-Year Seasonal Patterns of Ixodes ricinus and Dermacentor reticulatus Activity and Host Spectrum of Their Juvenile Stages in Eastern Poland

Urban green spaces increasingly serve as sites of human-tick contact, yet long-term data on tick activity and host associations in urban recreational areas remain limited. This study investigated the seasonal activity patterns of <i>Ixodes ricinus</i> and <i>Dermacentor reticulatus</i> and the host spectrum of juvenile tick stages in an urban park in eastern Poland over a five-year period (2015-2019). Questing ticks were collected from vegetation using the flagging method, while small mammals were live-trapped to assess tick infestation of juvenile stages. The effects of air temperature, relative humidity, and seasonality on tick activity were analysed using generalized additive models (GAMs). <i>D. reticulatus</i> was the dominant tick species throughout the study, exhibiting pronounced autumn activity peaks, whereas <i>I. ricinus</i> occurred at lower densities with peak activity in late spring and early summer. GAM analyses revealed that apparent temperature effects observed in uncorrected models disappeared after accounting for seasonality, while seasonal timing remained a strong and consistent predictor of tick activity across species, developmental stages, and sexes. Juvenile ticks of both species were most frequently associated with <i>Apodemus agrarius</i>, indicating that urban-adapted rodent hosts play a key role in sustaining tick life cycles in simplified urban ecosystems. These findings demonstrate that urban recreational areas can function as persistent foci of tick hazard, with tick activity driven primarily by intrinsic seasonal dynamics rather than short-term weather variation.