Fig. 1

Partial dependence plots representing the top six most important predictor variables from a generalized boosted regression model predicting tick zoonotic vector status. These partial dependence plots illustrate how ticks that transmit zoonotic diseases have distinctive characteristics from non-vectors. In each plot, the frequency histogram represents the trait values for all tick species (vectors and non-vectors) (left y-axis), and the black line shows the marginal effect of each trait on vector status after accounting for the average effects of all other variables in the model (right y-axis). For example, in panel 1, the majority of Ixodes ticks parasitize hosts from few taxonomic orders (bars), but tick vectors of zoonotic diseases tend to infest hosts from > 4 orders (line)