A domestic ecological mystery IMAGE: Research assistant Rachel Katz drags for ticks in the Ozarks. The drag cloth takes advantage of the ticks' natural host-seeking behavior, called questing. Ticks climb to the top of grass... Click here for more information. Stories of environmental damage and their consequences always seem to take place far away and in another country, usually a tropical one with lush rainforests and poison dart frogs. In fact, similar stories starring familiar animals are unfolding all the time in our own backyards — including gripping tales of diseases jumping from animal hosts to people when ecosystems are...