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I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this potential outcome thoroughly.

giorgioz 7y ago
I don't think that regions uninhabitable by mammals because of mosquitoes do exist. Female mosquitoes do require warm blood extraced by animals to depose eggs so if no animal live in a region also mosquitoes would not be able to reproduce there.
arbuge 7y ago
Are there any such regions to begin with? If they were uninhabitable, mosquitoes themselves would be absent, given that they require a blood supply.
- powfeu 7y ago
  they mean uninhabitable (or not usually inhabited) by certain species (though other species do live there) which might then chose to live there in the absence of the mosquitoes
bayesian_horse 7y ago
I've heard that human populations in Africa tended to stay away from the regions with the Malaria problems.
- littlestymaar 7y ago
  It's almost the opposite [1][2], and it's not surprising actually. People tend to forget what malaria is: it's an epidemic and it is not caused by the Anopheles, it is spread by the Anopheles if there is a pool of contaminated humans to feed from. That's why you have anopheles in almost every all European countries (including Russia) and also in the US[3], but no malaria, because the epidemic was eradicated there. [1]: map of the African population: http://www.utl-morlaix.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/afrique_population-zones.png http://www.utl-morlaix.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/afriqu... [2]: map of malaria prevalence in Africa https://www.populationdata.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Afrique-Malaria-prevalence-2015.png https://www.populationdata.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Af... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anopheles-range-map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anopheles-range-map.png
daddylonglegs 7y ago
The claim I've heard is that any one (or a few) species of mosquito is not important. There are thousands of species of mosquito and plenty of other biting insects. A few species are responsible for almost all of the mosquito-borne transmission of deadly human diseases. Eliminating those species should hugely reduce malaria but have little to no impact on wildlife that feed on insects (and you would still get bitten by plenty of insects in the tropics). Tsetse flies and the diseases they transmit have a major effect on keeping livestock in Africa; and hence the ecology and landscape of the affected areas. Removing the burden of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes will probably have indirect effects on a similar scale. Worth it.
- jschwartzi 7y ago
  Correct me off I'm wrong but wouldn't livestock grazing in previously uninhabitable regions have effects like reducing foliage and attendant erosion? This is the same reason the state parks where I live require you to stay on trail when the trail is maintained. The tens of thousands of people walking wherever have destroyed some hillsides by damaging foliage and causing erosion.
ImaCake 7y ago
There is actually historical precedent for this. From "Rewilding the world" (a great book I highly recommend) we find this about the Terai region of Nepal: >But in the mid-1950s, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal launched a massive mosquito-eradication program, and malaria) was vanquished. Subsequently, the population of the valleys tripled, with a flood of humanity moving down from the hills, where life was harder and agriculture poorer. The influx caused a rapid carving up of the entire Terai, from east to west, and turned it into the rice bowl of Nepal. Until the 1960s, the Terai was _ thickly populated with elephants, most of which were wiped out when the area was converted to agriculture, leaving a tiny remnant group in the west. Indeed, due to such habitat loss, the Asian species is far more endangered than the African, with only forty to fifty thousand left in the wild. Athough heavily logged and converted to agriculture, the Terai still contained forested pockets that held untold riches in endemic plants, bird species, and three of the most endangered large mammals on earth: Asian elephant, Bengal tiger, and the greater one-horned rhino. In addition, there were two perilously endangered freshwater species, the gharial crocodile and the Gangetic dolphin.
hcarvalhoalves 7y ago
That particular mosquito (Aedes aegypti) isn’t native to Brazil. It’s only ecological importance has been getting humans and small primates sick.

giorgioz 7y ago

I don't think that regions uninhabitable by mammals because of mosquitoes do exist. Female mosquitoes do require warm blood extraced by animals to depose eggs so if no animal live in a region also mosquitoes would not be able to reproduce there.

arbuge 7y ago

Are there any such regions to begin with? If they were uninhabitable, mosquitoes themselves would be absent, given that they require a blood supply.

powfeu 7y ago
they mean uninhabitable (or not usually inhabited) by certain species (though other species do live there) which might then chose to live there in the absence of the mosquitoes

bayesian_horse 7y ago

I've heard that human populations in Africa tended to stay away from the regions with the Malaria problems.

littlestymaar 7y ago
It's almost the opposite [1][2], and it's not surprising actually. People tend to forget what malaria is: it's an epidemic and it is not caused by the Anopheles, it is spread by the Anopheles if there is a pool of contaminated humans to feed from. That's why you have anopheles in almost every all European countries (including Russia) and also in the US[3], but no malaria, because the epidemic was eradicated there. [1]: map of the African population: http://www.utl-morlaix.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/afrique_population-zones.png http://www.utl-morlaix.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/afriqu... [2]: map of malaria prevalence in Africa https://www.populationdata.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Afrique-Malaria-prevalence-2015.png https://www.populationdata.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Af... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anopheles-range-map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anopheles-range-map.png

daddylonglegs 7y ago

The claim I've heard is that any one (or a few) species of mosquito is not important. There are thousands of species of mosquito and plenty of other biting insects. A few species are responsible for almost all of the mosquito-borne transmission of deadly human diseases. Eliminating those species should hugely reduce malaria but have little to no impact on wildlife that feed on insects (and you would still get bitten by plenty of insects in the tropics). Tsetse flies and the diseases they transmit have a major effect on keeping livestock in Africa; and hence the ecology and landscape of the affected areas. Removing the burden of diseases transmitted by mosquitoes will probably have indirect effects on a similar scale. Worth it.

jschwartzi 7y ago
Correct me off I'm wrong but wouldn't livestock grazing in previously uninhabitable regions have effects like reducing foliage and attendant erosion? This is the same reason the state parks where I live require you to stay on trail when the trail is maintained. The tens of thousands of people walking wherever have destroyed some hillsides by damaging foliage and causing erosion.

ImaCake 7y ago

There is actually historical precedent for this. From "Rewilding the world" (a great book I highly recommend) we find this about the Terai region of Nepal: >But in the mid-1950s, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal launched a massive mosquito-eradication program, and malaria) was vanquished. Subsequently, the population of the valleys tripled, with a flood of humanity moving down from the hills, where life was harder and agriculture poorer. The influx caused a rapid carving up of the entire Terai, from east to west, and turned it into the rice bowl of Nepal. Until the 1960s, the Terai was _ thickly populated with elephants, most of which were wiped out when the area was converted to agriculture, leaving a tiny remnant group in the west. Indeed, due to such habitat loss, the Asian species is far more endangered than the African, with only forty to fifty thousand left in the wild. Athough heavily logged and converted to agriculture, the Terai still contained forested pockets that held untold riches in endemic plants, bird species, and three of the most endangered large mammals on earth: Asian elephant, Bengal tiger, and the greater one-horned rhino. In addition, there were two perilously endangered freshwater species, the gharial crocodile and the Gangetic dolphin.

hcarvalhoalves 7y ago

That particular mosquito (Aedes aegypti) isn’t native to Brazil. It’s only ecological importance has been getting humans and small primates sick.