Availability of hosts can have significant impacts on the transmission of Lyme disease. A greater diversity of hosts, or of those that dont support the pathogen, tends to decrease the likelihood that the disease will be transmitted.In the United States, one approach to reducing the incidence of Lyme and other deer tick-borne diseases has been to greatly reduce the deer population on which the adult ticks depend for feeding and reproduction. Lyme disease cases fell following deer eradication on an island, Monhegan, Maine, and following deer control in Mumford Cove, Connecticut. Advocates have suggested reducing the deer population to levels of 8 to 10 deer per square mile, compared to levels of 60 or more deer per square mile in the areas of the country with the highest Lyme disease rates.Others have noted that while deer are reproductive hosts, they are not Borrelia burgdorferi reservoirs. Researchers have suggested that smaller, less obviously visible Lyme reservoirs, like white-footed mice and Eastern chipmunks, may more strongly impact Lyme disease occurrence. Ecosystem studies in New York state suggest that white-footed mice thrive when forests are broken into smaller isolated chunks of woodland with fewer rodent predators. With more rodents harboring the disease, the odds increase that a tick will feed on a disease-harboring rodent and that someone will pick up a disease-carrying tick in their garden or walking in the woods.
Parakeratosis is a mode of keratinization characterized by the retention of nuclei in the stratum corneum. In mucous membranes, parakeratosis is normal. In the skin, this process leads to the abnormal replacement of annular squames with nucleated cells. Parakeratosis is associated with the thinning or loss of the granular layer and is usually seen in diseases of increased cell turnover, whether inflammatory or neoplastic. Parakeratosis is seen in the plaques of psoriasis and in dandruff. Granular parakeratosis (originally termed axillary granular parakeratosis) is an idiopathic, benign, nondisabling cutaneous disease that manifests with intertriginous erythematous, brown or red, scaly or keratotic papules and plaques. It presents in all age groups and has no established clinical associations. See also
Skin lesion
Skin disease
List of skin diseases


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