Do wolves in the landscape affect the number of ticks, their distribution and the presence of Borrelia in them? What makes it more or less likely that you’d be bitten by a tick and get Lyme disease? How can you protect yourself when going into the forest?
Dr Nicolas De Pelsmaeker is on a mission to find the answers to these questions. He collects and studies ticks in the Bialowieza National Park to understand the links between these parasites and their hosts, which are deer and wolves. He also wants to find out the mechanism of transmission of the Borrelia bacteria, which is dangerous to humans. – In a lot of places in Europe, wolves have been extinct for centuries – says dr De Pelsmaeker from Mammal Research Institute PAS. – With the results that we find, we may be able to predict when wolves arrive in a new area, what that brings as an effect on the disease risk for people, for pets and for also livestock
Check out a short documentary: Can wolves protect us from ticks, and deer from Lyme Disease? https://youtu.be/MmcQms_ITo8?si=CJMVhkxvJeCgPQSN
This is the third in a series of videos about research projects conducted in Poland by foreign scientists under the POLONEZ BIS programme.
