Credit: Saskia Keller, National Wildlife Health Center.
You assemble a huge team of herpetologists to travel throughout Florida, looking for infected snakes and/or GPS coordinates where groups of infected snakes have been reported previously. When they find these locations, the team sprays all plant and soil substrates with a general veterinary fungicide to try to kill any remaining Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola in the environment. Any infected snakes present in the environment are also treated by the spraying intervention. In NetLogo, click the “spray-contaminated-environment” button a single time, which should cause some of the red dots to turn green temporarily.
Credit: Megalos et al. (2016)
Though this seemed like a good idea at the time, the general public sees the spraying happen, and gets worried about harmful side effects. Then the scientific community finds out that you didn’t test this fungicide in natural ecosystems before using it. People are very upset about the potentially harmful consequences, so subtract 3 charisma points. After spending $100,000 and spraying perhaps 20% of contaminated sites, you’re forced to stop this controversial intervention. Advance 6 ticks/weeks. What do you do next?
Option 1: Do another intervention.
Time Cost: Depends on which intervention you select
Monetary Cost: Depends on which intervention you select
Charisma Effect: Unknown
Option 2: Apply for more money for research or control efforts.
Time Cost: 4 Weeks/Ticks
Monetary Cost: $0
Charisma Effect: Unknown
Option 3: Do more research.
Time Cost: It depends on which research option you choose
Monetary Cost: It depends on which research option you choose
Charisma Effect: Unknown