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I live in Alaska, famous for its mosquitoes as well as megafauna like bears, caribou, moose, wolves, migratory birds, fish, seals, whales etc. I often wonder i
by sixstringtheory 5y ago
I live in Alaska, famous for its mosquitoes as well as megafauna like bears, caribou, moose, wolves, migratory birds, fish, seals, whales etc.
I often wonder if those mosquitoes don’t fulfill some strange yet essential role in that beautiful ecosystem’s continuation.
Would love to hear that no, we can safely eliminate them and all the other cool and cuddly ones will be fine. But with my luck…
Really though, I’d like to see better medical technologies to deal with illnesses.
- nfc 5y agoCouldn't we run experiments to discover whether they really have this role? Like for example choosing an island with mosquitoes (and far enough from other lands as to not be rapidly repopulated) eliminating them there and seeing what the effect is in the ecosystem? I wonder if something like this has ever been tried.
- interestica 5y agoI think they're deploying these (https://www.oxitec.com/en/our-technology https://www.oxitec.com/en/our-technology) in the Florida Keys (https://www.keysmosquitoproject.com/our-solution https://www.keysmosquitoproject.com/our-solution)
- raducu 5y agoMosquito biomass is not negligible I think. Surely some critters will suffer if we remove mosquitos.
- tpxl 5y agoAfaik there are some species of birds that rely on mosquitoes for most of their diet.
- Gravityloss 5y agoFish eat mosquito larva.