Comment on For the little guys.

• FireRetardant@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Dragonflys, bats and many other animals rely on that as a food source, then other animals rely on the animals eating mosquitoes. Mosquitoes also spread disease which can act as a natural population control for some species. Everything is interconnected in ecosystems. The animals present, the temperature and chemistry of the water, the depth and nutrition of the soil, the plants that grow there. A minor change can ripple throughout the ecosystem and cause major consequences long term. Some of those changes occur naturally, but for the most part humans change ecosystems faster than they can naturally react.

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  • Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    Ehhh, I recently posted elsewhere: about 80 species of mosquito carry dangerous (for human) diseases. The other 3400 are harmless if very mildly annoying. And all of those species share a niche with their harmless genera mates.

    It’s really really hard to kill just one species though, especially if they DO share an ecological niche with the species you don’t want to kill.

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    • protist@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

      This is why releasing sterilized individuals into wild populations seems so promising, it’s species-specific

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  • Liz@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    It’s my understanding that ecologists generally agree we could eradicate human-biting mosquitos and it wouldn’t cause any real problems. Yes, other species eat them, but they’re not a critical species in any ecosystem, apparently.

    You know how there’s those stories of scientists introducing a species into an ecosystem for one reason or another, and all sorts of unintended consequences happen? Ever notice how those stories are all from around the 1950s and earlier? It’s because we actually got pretty good at thinking through all of the possible significant impacts. We only introduce/eradicate species now when we know doing so is a good idea and have worked through the consequences. But I want to be clear that I agree with your sentiment. You shouldn’t intentionally change an ecosystem without serious planning and consideration for what will happen when you do.

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  • protist@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

    This isn’t really true though, especially since the mosquitoes in question aren’t even native to the Americas, and whole ecosystems evolved without them. I have also read multiple things about how mosquitoes don’t actually make up much of the diet of these animals anyway, because they are tiny and provide almost no nutrients, these animals prefer most other insects before eating a mosquito

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  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    Sure, they have their role to play in this ecosystem. But tell me why I should care for possible reactions due to their utter eradication? We will kill this planet anyway in every way, the mosquitoes aren’t gonna change anything. And me, doing whatever, won’t change our specie’s course either. Greed signed that fate a long time ago.

    That said though, my initial comment wasn’t meant dead-serious.

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• arararagi@ani.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  South America agrees with you.

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  • Dyskolos@lemmy.zip ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

    I can very much imagine that. Here they “just” are an annoyance, but not dangerous.

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• Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

  Hard agree. It’s the one extinction event I’ll make an exception for

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