<p>Supplementary Table S1. Environmental, host-related, and arthropod-related variables (or abbreviations) used in multivariate models.</p><p>Variable name/ Set of variables Description abbreviation One of eight sites across Indiana Site (Supplementary Fig. S1) Habitat Forest or field Average temperature in the night of capture Environmental Temp (6 PM - 7AM) Average relative humidity in the night of RH capture (6 PM - 7AM)</p><p>H ID The individual host H species The host species H gender The host gender The host reproduction status (reproductive vs. H rep non-reproductive) Host-related H age The host age (juveniles vs. adults) Total number of fleas detected on the host H fleas individual Total number of ticks detected on the host H ticks individual</p><p>*V species The arthropod species The combined gender and reproduction status</p><p>**V genRp of the arthropod (male vs. non-reproductive Arthropod-related vs. reproductive female) V eng Engorgement level of arthropod ***V life st Arthropod life stage * For the complete dataset analysis there was only a distinction between fleas and ticks</p><p>** Only in the separate flea analyses</p><p>*** Only in the separate tick analyses </p>