
A world without mosquitoes (2010) - denzil_correa
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html
======
ianbicking
Inspired by this article, and getting bitten by mosquitoes since then, and
some of the more interesting species-targeting work being done, I've been
thinking about this topic.

There is a very major positive impact that mosquito elimination would have:
we'd stop trying to suppress mosquitoes. We'd stop spraying for mosquitoes.
We'd be more lax about standing water. Standing water is treated like
something awful, and while it can get a bit smelly and obnoxious, that's
because standing water is an interesting host for lots of life, and besides
mosquitoes that life is mostly fine. Add in tick elimination and we could let
many more urban areas go fully wild. More people would spend more time
outside, and I think that would itself be a major ecological factor, as it
would positively affect our attitude about the outdoors.

There's a couple obnoxious insects, but nothing compares to the mosquito.
Eliminate mosquitoes and suddenly the human race can come to peace with bugs.
That would be hugely ecologically positive.

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beloch
Wiping out a species deliberately flies in the face of the philosophy of
environmental conservation that we all learned in school and from media.
However, we have wiped out organisms that threaten humans before (e.g.
smallpox) and are currently in the process of wiping out others, such as polio
and the guinea worm, which is a parasite that is ingested in contaminated
water only to emerge, slowly and painfully, through the skin (see
Dracunculiasis).

In terms of deaths caused, mosquitoes are undoubtedly far deadlier than any
species humans have eradicated to date. In North America they are more of a
nuisance than a deadly threat, but the same does not hold true for large
portions of the world where they are a major disease vector. They are
unquestionably worth eradicating if it ever becomes feasible to do so.

The question should not be whether or not we should eliminate the species of
mosquitoes that feed on humans. Instead, we should ask how can we minimize the
impact of eliminating these species. Can other species of mosquitoes that are
not disease vectors, or other insects entirely, fill in the vacated niche? Is
it possible to eradicate mosquitoes in test areas to see what the long-term
impact is? If we do eradicate them globally, how long would we have to "hit
reset" by hatching and releasing stored eggs if unforeseen consequences make
it necessary?

~~~
hayksaakian
Alternatively, can we nudge evolution in a desirable direction so that the
disease spreading capabilities of modern mosquito's are surpassed by a new
species that serves the same ecological role without spreading disease?

~~~
aestra
Impossible. Even if we could nobody knows the full extent of the ecological
role of mosquitos. When you are talking about ecology there are too many
variables to know them all.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Nature lost species all the time throughout history, and the world survived.
I'd say, there are so many variables that the ecosystem can surely adapt to
the loss of any particular species.

~~~
fowl2
yeah everything will adapt, but it still might be worse /for us/

~~~
Natsu
It's hard to see how as long as we're talking about mosquitoes. We're not
talking about putting the Earth through anything like these:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extinction_event)

------
lovemenot
A little disappointed that neither the article nor comments have made much of
the argument that any species which has made it through billions of years of
evolution is _intrinsically_ a thing of value. As for planned extinction, I
feel the bar should be set high: we needn't know, right now, what their long-
term value must be.

Nevertheless, if I try to find some specific value to mosquitoes, it is likely
related to the thing that also makes them pernicious. They are evasive,
clever, micro-scale hunters some of which have co-evolved with humans for
millions of years. Their feeding indicates they might be used for drug
delivery, weapons, communications, logistics.

Just from one person's point of view, it would be a shame if, ten years after
total eradication, Moore's Law delivered a boat-load of potential applications
for mosquitoes. And of course if these insects have a say in the matter, we
know how they'd likely vote.

~~~
baddox
> A little disappointed that neither the article nor comments have made much
> of the argument that any species which has made it through billions of years
> of evolution is intrinsically a thing of value.

When you dabble in evolutionary determinism, you run into problems, because
humans seem to have free will but also seem to be the result of evolution. So
when it comes to decisions by humans, it's hard to say which choice is
"interfering" with evolution. I would say that, by definition, no human action
is interfering with evolution, assuming that humans are the result of
evolution. If we do decide to eliminate mosquitoes, well, that just means
humans evolved to eliminate mosquitoes, and mosquitoes didn't evolve to
survive such attempts.

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EGreg
I think Bill Gates has been trumpeting this as well. It wouldn't be the first
species driven to extinction by human activity. How about it friends? In other
news, pubic lice are already an endangered species:

[http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazilian-bikini-wax-making-
crab...](http://www.cbsnews.com/news/brazilian-bikini-wax-making-crab-lice-
endangered/)

------
Cogito
A few comments discuss the complete eradication of all mosquitoes, and the
impact that would have. It is worth noting that only a few of the various
mosquito species are vectors for most of the diseases we tend to care about,
and as such the complete eradication of all mosquitoes is not necessary.

You can eradicate just those species in order to remove the disease vectors,
and replace them at the same time with a different mosquito that has a similar
ecological role.

Of course we don't actually know if disease-vector mosquitoes play a different
role than non-disease-vector mosquitoes, but the premise need not be the
removal of all mosquitoes.

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jimmcslim
I highly recommend this Radiolab episode, "KILL 'EM ALL", which explores the
same issue.

[http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-
all/](http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/)

------
dmritard96
As someone that grew up in South Florida, spending lots of time in the
Everglades and Keys (shit tons of mosquitoes...), I find the whole thing
pretty scary. As an occasional fly fisherman that uses mosquito fly's I find
the idea scary. Mosquitoes present problems for humans, but this general idea
of lets wipe out species to make life easier for humans seems shortsighted, at
best.

~~~
aaronem
It's not really a new idea. Seen any _homo neanderthalensis_ around lately?

~~~
Thrymr
That was not really an "idea", but the result of collective actions. This is
to previous extinctions [1] as premeditated murder is to negligent homicide.

[1] with the possible exception of smallpox

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winter_blue
I think that, if we can, we should completely and entirely get the world rid
of mosquitoes (and tsetse flies as well if possible). Several species have
become extinct in the world's history -- in fact far more species have gone
extinct than extant today. Diminishing mosquitoes to EW (Extinct in the Wild)
status would save millions of human lives.

Malaria isn't the only disease spread by mosquito. Mosquitoes are responsible
for transmitting several diseases. The "aedes aegypti" species of mosquito
doesn't spread malaria, but several other debilitating diseases including
dengue fever, chikungunya, yellow fever, etc.

------
Jedd
Since the goal is to rid ourselves of malaria, are there more sophisticated
ways to do this that don't involve permanently eradicating some or all species
of mosquitoes?

I'm sure I read, perhaps mid 1990's in a New Scientist article, a proposition
along the lines of:

1\. obtain a good sampling of a/some mosquito species - keep them in a sealed
greenhouse somewhere, ensuring they have access to clean blood (ie. no
pathogens we care about)

2\. eradicate them in the wild - at the time the expectation was a
'terminator' style gene that, once introduced into populations would, after
say a dozen or so generations, lead to an exclusively infertile population,
resulting in extinction

3\. release the pathogen-free mosquitoes back into the environment -
presumably after ensuring pathogens were no longer in the population, which I
suppose means at least one generation of hosts - so it could be some decades.

The idea was appealing because it means if we missed something fundamental
during phase 2, it'd be possible to re-populate quickly, it could be repeated
periodically if needed, and it could be performed on regional levels with good
effect, especially if you toned down your expectations to 'drastically
reducing prevalence of pathogens' rather than 100% eradication.

~~~
lxmorj
Backup the species before deleting them in case there is an unforeseen
dependency? Pretty clever failsafe, actually!

------
blaze33
Reminds me of the 4 pests campaign in China, 1958 [1]. "By April 1960, Chinese
leaders realized that sparrows ate a large amount of insects, as well as
grains. Rather than being increased, rice yields after the campaign were
substantially decreased." [1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign)

Not related, a 2011 study (edit: this in fact credited in the article) found
out that eradicating mosquitoes in the french Camargue led to house martins
having trouble finding food and correctly feeding their offspring. [2]

[2]
[http://www.tourduvalat.org/fr/actualites/indirect_effects_bi...](http://www.tourduvalat.org/fr/actualites/indirect_effects_bioinsecticides_non_target_fauna_camargue_experiments_calls_future)
Original study: POULIN B., 2012. Indirect effects of bioinsecticides on the
non target fauna: the Camargue experiments calls for future research. Acta
Oecol 44 p28-32.

Appears we're not that good at predicting outcomes in complex systems.

------
guard-of-terra
Can't we kill off mosquitoes and then release ones who can't drink blood? I
guess they'll still reproduce, albeit slower.

------
kristiandupont
When the world started switching to LED-based traffic lights, cold places
suddenly discovered that there was a problem: they would get covered in snow.
Turns out that the old incandescent ones had a solution to this problem in
giving off heat. As trivial as it is once you think about it, it was a problem
that we didn't even realize we had solved.

I always use this as an example of how bad we are at predicting the outcome of
our actions. It's why small iterations make so much sense. For running your
company and for anything.

Eradicating mosquitoes might seem harmless in any way we can think of (even
though the article gives good examples of why it probably isn't), but even so,
such a massive change in the eco-system is bound to have a bunch of really
severe consequences that we hadn't foreseen.

------
sramsay
Taken as a whole, the article says, "We don't really know what would happen."
And while absolute certainty seems unlikely in an area as complex as ecology,
it also seems foolhardy at best to act on the kind of (understandably) flimsy
knowledge we now possess.

------
ck2
How would we ever recreate dinosaurs without mosquitoes trapped in amber?

But seriously, where do I donate to the irradiation of mosquitoes?

I suspect it is not just a matter of money or Bill Gates foundation would be
working on that (other than their genetic modification experiments).

~~~
cbd1984
> the irradiation of mosquitoes

Eradication. Irradiated mosquitoes would just make our problems worse.

------
frogpelt
Okay, so it might be a good thing if we rid the world of mosquitoes.

Could we even do that? How?

~~~
DanBC
There are limited mosquito species that carry malaria, and only the females
bite humans. Those insects have specific wing-beat frequencies and a limited
range of sizes. So it's possible to build "photonic fences" \- sets of
detectors to detect those specific mosquitos and then shoot them with a laser.

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser)

If you make these cheap enough amd deploy them widely enough you'd cut down on
the problem populations.

~~~
martey
Since the "photonic fence" was developed by known patent troll Intellectual
Ventures in 2009 and does not seem to have been ever deployed outside of their
labs, the cynic in me thinks that it was only created to boost their PR
efforts (there were dozens of articles at the time about how the laser system
would eliminate malaria) and possibly increase their patent portfolio.

[https://www.google.com/patents/US20100186284](https://www.google.com/patents/US20100186284)

[http://www.malariaworld.org/blog/will-laser-technology-
rid-a...](http://www.malariaworld.org/blog/will-laser-technology-rid-africa-
malaria)

[https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120903/0...](https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120903/07334520256/forget-
death-star-anti-mosquito-lasers-heres-how-nathan-myhrvold-can-help-tackle-
malaria-improve-his-image.shtml)

------
JDDunn9
Killing off all the mosquitoes is pretty challenging. Mosquitoes have a short
flight ranges, from 300ft to 3 miles. So whatever method you use has to cover
every mile of land. They are attracted to CO2, which makes it difficult to
make a trap that is any more effective at attracting them than every other
person around. Bats can eat a lot of mosquitoes, but they also eat a lot of
other insects too, which would have side-effects.

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trhway
>Yet in many cases, scientists acknowledge that the ecological scar left by a
missing mosquito would heal quickly as the niche was filled by other
organisms.

yeaaa... i can't wait to learn who will replace those mosquitos in the "human
bloodsucker and malaria<or whatever else> spreader" niche. I'm sure it will be
very polite and tender creation doing it quickly and painlessly ...

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hyp0
Most of civilization's advances address problems created by civilization,
especially density and diet. Eliminating the harmful mosquitoes will surely
create some additional problems - but we'll deal with just as we have all the
other problems we create.

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omilu
I assume a lot of other animals rely on mosquitoes for food, for example fish
and spiders. What would these guys eat when we eliminate mosquitoes.

~~~
seanflyon
Other small flying insects.

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MattWard
hard to think there couldn't be negatives to this...some thing s we don't
totally understand yet

would harm anything that eats them, possibly reducing diseases would lead to
over population of certain species as well

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simonebrunozzi
What's the best mosquito repellent?

