Introduction and objective: Electromagnetic radiation interactions with living systems have been one of determining factors in biological evolution. This study investigates the effect of 900 MHz radiofrequency (RF) electromagnetics field (EMF) exposure of eggs on the development of Dermacentor reticulatus larvae. The basic objective was to determine whether the 900 MHz RF-EMF has the potential to influence the size of the body of the hatched larvae of D. reticulatus ticks.
Material and methods: To this aim, eggs from 3 fully engorged females of D. reticulatus were included in the test procedure. Altogether four groups of eggs were designated which included eggs from each female. We used RF-EMF frequency of 900 MHz. Eggs were exposed to EMF for different time periods (30, 60 and 90 minutes) in dark, electromagnetically shielded anechoic chamber. After the irradiation eggs were allowed to hatch in climatic chamber. Randomly selected 200 larval individuals were measured to get basic morphological records. Four body traits including the total body length (TBL), length of gnathosoma with scutum (GSL), the total body width (TBW), and the width of basis capituli (BCW) were measured.
Results: The D. reticulatus larvae hatched from eggs exposed for 60 minutes, had demonstrably larger dimensions of all measured body traits not only as a control unexposed group but also as other experimental groups.
Conclusions: The study shows, particularly, that artificial EMF that is used in smartphone technology impacts seriously D. reticulatus larvae development.
Keywords: Dermacentor; body size; development; electromagnetic field; larva; tick.