Fig. 7.

Equilibrium larval population sizes (${\widehat{L}}^{\ast }$) decrease at low mouse densities when larval activity begins much later than nymphal activity. $M=k(1-{\mu }_m/b)$ is the mouse population size, $t_{l0}$ is the offset between when nymphs and larvae begin emerging, ${\gamma }_l$ and ${\gamma }_n$ are the contact rates between larvae and mice and nymphs and mice, respectively. The first row shows that if ${\gamma }_l$ and ${\gamma }_n$ are high, large $t_{l0}$ decreases ${\widehat{L}}^{\ast }$ slightly when nymphal and larval emergence is broad ($l_l$ and $l_n$). The second row shows that if ${\gamma }_l$ and ${\gamma }_n$ are low, large $t_{l0}$ decreases ${\widehat{L}}^{\ast }$ more strongly, especially when nymphal and larval emergence is broad ($l_l$ and $l_n$). Note that contour colors are not the same across plots. All other parameter values are shown in Table 1