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Wouldn't removing the mosquitoes and changing the entire environment from fetid to oxygenated water disrupt the ecosystem?
by bencollier49 12y ago
Wouldn't removing the mosquitoes and changing the entire environment from fetid to oxygenated water disrupt the ecosystem?
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoThe change in the water might, but it turns out that mosquitoes aren't a vital part of any ecosystem. Nothing preys on them exclusively or even primarily, and their animal victims seldom die, so they're not keeping anything's numbers in check.
- josefresco 12y agoDon't bats eat a healthy diet of mosquitoes?
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoThey do, but it's a relatively small part of their diet. They do all right on other bugs.
- gurraman 12y agoWell, they do seem to keep human numbers in check to some degree.
- icoder 12y agoI always understood that human numbers in less developed areas actually increase because other forces (disease, poverty, mosquitoes?) try to keep them in check.
- Ygg2 12y agoYeah, but male mosquitoes are pollinators, right?
- PhasmaFelis 12y agoThey are, but the same thing applies--every plant that mosquitoes pollinate is also ably served by other species.
- acdha 12y agoThat's unclear - there was an article a few years back arguing otherwise: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
- nkozyra 12y agoThere are almost always unforeseen consequences. As much as I'd like to believe otherwise, doesn't it feel almost impossible that the sole purpose of mosquitoes is to annoy and kill humans?
- acdha 12y agoAgreed, although that article does depend on some sort of near-magic which could wipe out only the mosquito species which actually feed on humans. If you're going to wipe out something without consequences, a few subspecies of parasite would probably be your best case.
- nkozyra 12y agoIn fact, even in that article "Mosquitoes consume up to 300 millilitres of blood a day from each animal in a caribou herd, which are thought to select paths facing into the wind to escape the swarm. A small change in path can have major consequences in an Arctic valley through which thousands of caribou migrate, trampling the ground, eating lichens, transporting nutrients, feeding wolves, and generally altering the ecology. Taken all together, then, mosquitoes would be missed in the Arctic — but is the same true elsewhere?" There seems to be this assumption that a small ecological disruption wouldn't cascade and to me that seems pretty short-sighted.