[HumanHater]

... and for bed bugs, and for fleas, and also for basically every insect that feeds on mammal blood. They are important vectors of transmitting a whole lot of diseases, some of which already dangerous to humans while others could easily mutate to become ones. We are already eradicating a lot of species. May as well exterminate bad ones. There are no ethical problems because no sane person feels bad about killing ticks. These species probably don't have any important ecological role (well maybe they speed up evolution a little bit, but in that case screw evolution). And in case anything goes wrong repopulating the whole globe with them would take no time.

[andrewl]

I agree. I would not mourn if ticks were eradicated.

Off the top of my head the only ecological role I can think of for them is as food for tick-eating birds. But I don't think there are any birds that subsist exclusively on ticks, so they'd probably be all right.

And for our general literacy, I want to point out that ticks are arachnids, not insects.

[HumanHater]

Well all these species probably has role in horizontal gene transfer. They also help keeping animal population from growing too big. However it is very unlikely that any of this factors has any global effect. Some areas of the world don't have mosquitoes or ticks, in others they were eradicated with DDT and other chemicals. Observed negative consequences didn't have anything to do with eliminated targets.

It's possible that in some local areas some animals would be severely affected. But even in that case climate change already changing natural balance. For example ticks are almost culling deers. It is better to find new equilibrium while humanity still can have some control over the ecosystem.

[s0rce]

Possum's also eat ticks.

[BenjiWiebe]

But they definitely don't only eat ticks.