Su et al.
Global trends in tick research: a comprehensive visualization and bibliometric study (2015-2024) Front. Cell. Infect. Microbiol. 2025, 15:1697791, doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2025.1697791
To identify the characteristics of global tick-related research, identify research hotspots, and explore future trends in this field, a study analyzed various databases of national, institutional, journal, author, keyword, and reference data from the relevant literature from 2015 to 2024.
The study comprised a total of 13,499 articles. Over the last decade, research on ticks has been published in 1,220 journals. Among all journals, “Ticks and Tick-borne Diseases” was the most prolific publication, with 1,498 publications and 25,309 citations, followed by “Parasites & Vectors” and “Experimental and Applied Acarology”.
Among the Top 15 key words involved in tick research. “Lyme disease” ranked first, followed by “tick-borne disease” and “TBE or TBE virus” on place 3, showing the relevance of this disease/virus.
The United States dominated the scholarly output, accounting for nearly a third of all publications, followed by China and Brazil.
Among the Top 10 institutions, which have published the largest number of publications, six were located in the USA. The other four top 10 institutions were Brazil, South Africa, the Czech Republic, and China.
The author with the most tick-related publications was Marcelo B. Labruna, followed by José de la Fuente and Alejandro Cabezas-Cruz.
Advances in pathogen detection methodologies have facilitated substantial progress in tick research, including PCR technologies, next-generation sequencing and macro-genomic analyses. Researchers have gained a deeper level in tick microbiome, microbiome interaction, endosymbionts, immune regulation and transmission of pathogens. During the last years, the keyword “acaricide” has raised increasing attention. In the future, tick research will become more interdisciplinary, with increasing collaborations between various fields, including environmental sciences, molecular biology, public health, innovative vector control methodologies, and the One Health framework to mitigate the international burden of tick-borne diseases.