Lyme Disease Case Study Answers

Lyme Disease
Lyme Disease is a major problem, especially in New England, which is where it started. Lyme Disease is spread around by deer ticks; they feed on an organism and that organism may get infected. The bacteria that causes Lyme Disease is Borrelia Burgdorferi, a spirochete that causes a lot of damage to your body. However, there are two different solutions that could stop Lyme Disease from spreading even more: vaccines and population control. Deer ticks get Lyme from the mice they prey on as larvae. If the mice were given vaccines, that would stop the ticks from spreading Lyme. On the other hand, if the mice populations were lowered, the number of Lyme Disease cases might get reduced too.
I would give the vaccine to mice because that’s where the ticks get Lyme, according to BrainPOP. If the ticks don’t get B.
burgdorferi from mice, they can’t spread it to humans, dogs, or other organisms. The bacteria, B. burgdorferi is able to cause a lot of damage to your body because it’s able to change the antigens that it has on it, making your body unable to identify it. The way the vaccine works is that it has multiple antibodies that are able to counter the multiple antigens that the bacteria has, effectively getting rid of the bacteria. A way to give all the mice in New England the vaccine is to spread around food like fruits, seeds, and grains, that the mice usually eat, but have the food contain the vaccine. Edible vaccines are currently being researched, but are going to be low cost according to the Federation of American Scientists.
If I could decrease an organism’s population it would be the mice, for the same reason as before; they’re the source of Lyme Disease and getting rid of them might stop it from spreading. Decreasing the mice population would mean that less ticks would get B. burgdorferi from the mice, resulting in less organisms getting infected. Increasing the amount of predators, or setting traps or poison are some ways to control the mice population. Increasing the amount of barn owls might be best because they eat up to a dozen mice a night. However, decreasing the population would impact the ecosystem greatly, considering the fact that lots of other animals prey on mice. Most birds of prey, snakes, coyotes, foxes, skunks and lots of others feed on mice. Without the mice, the populations of those animals have a chance of lowering as well, if they can’t find other prey. Also, mice keep the growth of grains in control by eating them. If the mice aren’t there, the grains would overgrow.
I think the vaccine is more effective because it wouldn’t affect the ecosystem as much as the population control solution.
Controlling the population of mice can lead to other species, that feed on mice, going extinct. The vaccine would only help get rid of Lyme Disease.
If either the deer or mice populations were reduced, then the whole environment would be affected. If the mice population were reduced then the predators that feed mainly on mice like birds of prey would drop, and grains that mice feed on would increase. If the deer population decreased then the predators of deer, like wolves, would decrease as well.
A lot of time would be needed for either using the vaccine or the population control. For the vaccine, it has to be given to just about every mouse that has Lyme Disease to be effective, making it take a long time to actually work. Also, the resources for the vaccines would cost a lot, considering the amount of mice currently and their reproduction rate. For population control, even lots of predators would take a while to get the mice population lowered. The resources for that would just be predators, like owls, that mainly feed on
mice.
I think we definitely shouldn’t try to control the population, because it impacts the ecosystem negatively. However, as long as the vaccine solution doesn’t include killing animals like the population control solution, I think that it should be used because Lyme Disease is harming multiple species like humans and dogs.
In conclusion, the best solution for Lyme Disease, out of either using a vaccine or population control, is using a vaccine. It wouldn’t impact the ecosystem as much as population control and less animals would die or possibly go extinct.