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sennbat t1_iy8zxgz wrote

Reply to comment by Thalwegs in US bat species devastated by fungus now listed as endangered by zsreport

Has there ever been any evidence of the world being worse off without ticks in it? All the other animals listed I can see, but ticks are completely parasitic at every stage in their lifecycle, don't make up any significant part of any creatures diet that I can recall, and generally make things miserable for everything they interact with. Everything I've seen has put ticks as 'ecosystem non-contributors'. They don't have a bunch of redeeming qualities like, say, mosquitos do.

Driving ticks to extinction seems like it would have about the same negative impact as driving ebola or rabies to extinction.

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Thalwegs t1_iy933vl wrote

For ticks specifically, not that I know of, but this is outside my realm of study. There is broadly evidence that parasites are beneficial, if not simply important to, ecosystem functioning: they can affect animal behavior, population control and dynamics, serve as prey, etc.

Here is a study hypothesizing benefits of parasites in broader ecosystem processes. For all that humanity does know, there is still an inordinate amount that it does not know, and we should not be so bold or naive to think that we can remove an entire group of organisms without cascading consequences.

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Rickshmitt t1_iy9ev50 wrote

Makes sense. That parasite that culls bug populations when they get too large (unless thats been proven wrong like most science i learned in school). I certainly didnt think outside of what feeds on them. Skeeters do kill about 1 million people a year, so thats kind of them

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petit_cochon t1_iy9v2cm wrote

Possums love ticks!

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Atiggerx33 t1_iybdjm3 wrote

Opossums don't need them though. Like ticks aren't a large enough part of their diet that they'd starve to death without ticks.

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