## 3 Results  
### General Pattern and Correlation  
We collected 897 blacklegged ticks in nine field trips to the four parks around New York City, of which 88.3% (792) were adults and 11.7% (105) were nymphs. The field data show little temporal overlap between adult and nymphal ticks (Table 2). In seven out of the nine days of sampling, we collected adult ticks without finding any nymphs. On 7 June 2018, we collected 101 nymphs and 10 adult ticks. Moreover, one week later, on 14 June 2018, only four nymphal blacklegged ticks were collected. Temporally, the question of adult blacklegged ticks was active in May and November, i.e., the late spring and late fall; nymphs were active in June, the early summer. It must be pointed out that this only applies to blacklegged ticks. We did observe a fair number of question nymphs of lone star ticks during the field trip on 24 May 2018. To visually inspect the data, we plotted the distribution of question blacklegged ticks across the four parks over time (Figure 4). Obviously, there were significant spatiotemporal variations. For example, 113 adult blacklegged ticks were collected across 16 sites (mean per site is 7.06) on 27 October 2017 in CSP, and 209 were collected across 30 sites (mean is 6.74) on 1 November 2017 in CRSP. However, only 88 were collected from over 35 sites (mean is 2.44) on 15 November 2017, two weeks later, in RPP. At FINS, which has a very different landscape, only four nymphal blacklegged ticks were collected without any adult ticks. With the dates and parks being tangled together, it is difficult to identify clear patterns, even though preliminary visualization suggested the possible correlation between temperature and average number of question ticks per site. A simple \(t\)-test suggests that the season makes a difference, as the average number of question blacklegged ticks is significantly higher in the spring than in the fall (\(t=-4.253\), \(p<0.001\)). However, this pattern is skewed by the specific data point of 15 November \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Date** & **Location** & **\# of Sites** & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Total of Adult Ticks** \\ **(\(\mu\), \(\sigma\))** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Total of Nymph** \\ **(\(\mu\), \(\sigma\))** \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline
12 May 2017 & Caumset SP & 11 & 109 (9.90, 4.99) & 0 \\
27 October 2017 & Caumset SP & 16 & 113 (7.06, 3.86) & 0 \\
1 September 2017 & Connetquot River SP & 30 & 209 (6.74, 5.13) & 0 \\
15 September 2017 & Rockefeller Park Preserve & 35 & 88 (24.4, 1.91) & 0 \\
26 April 2018 & Caumsett SP & 3 & 47 (15.67, 13.43) & 0 \\
4 May 2018 & Connetquot River SP & 10 & 162 (14.73, 20.80) & 0 \\
24 May 2018 & Caumsett SP & 8 & 54 (6.75, 5.68) & 0 \\
7 June 2018 & Caumsett SP & 7 & 10 (1.43, 1.27) & 101 (14.42, 3.46) \\
14 June 2018 & Fire Island NS & 4 & 0 & 4 (1, 1.15) \\ Total & & 124 & 792 & 105 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 2: Sampling Results. Figure 4: Statistics of Questing Black-legged Tick. The number of question black-legged ticks varies significantly across time and between the four parks. Overall, temperature has a positive correlation with the question tick numbers. Parks with more vegetation land cover also have higher numbers. 2017 in RPP. The average air temperature on that day was approximately \(-1\)\({}^{\circ}\)C. Although 88 adult ticks were collected across 35 sites (mean = 2.44, standard deviation = 1.91) on that day, the number is much lower than expected as the temperature was below the lower threshold (4 \({}^{\circ}\)C) of tick question activity. When excluding tick survey data from 15 November the average number of questing ticks during the fall is actually higher than the spring. However, the difference is not statistically significant (\(t\) = 0.684, \(p\) = 0.496). The tick surveys in RPP and FINS revealed significant inconsistencies in the counts of questing black-legged ticks from those in CSP and CRSP.