I think it’s a genius solution to the explicity problem, but a terrible solution in a larger scope. There are many animals that feed on mosquitos, and they would suffer from massive decreases in mosquito population. This includes birds, frogs, bats, fish, and other insects (many aquatic animals eat mosquito larvae). I would hate to see a cascading reduction in animal populations as a result of these tactics.
Comment on Horrors We've Unleashed
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Tbh I wouldn’t be sad if we genetically modified mosquitoes to breed them out of existence like we’ve done with screw worm.
TheOakTree@lemm.ee 1 week ago
hydrospanner@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I get the concern, and it’s a good concern to have when you’re talking about what would be such a huge shift in so many ecosystems…
…buuuuuut…
I have to believe this change would happen slowly… mosquitoes wouldn’t just go extinct over a holiday weekend. It’d take years, if not decades, of dedication to the eradication strategy and even then, certain populations may prove immune to the best efforts of science.
That being said, even if it did execute as planned, I feel like the gradual decline of the mosquito would coincide with a gradual increase in other invertebrate species that would fill that niche. So as mosquito populations slowly declined in a local pond or creek, you’d see things like say chironomids (midges) thriving with the reduced competition for habitat, and the fish that ate mosquito larvae replacing that part of their diet with more midges.
Not saying there couldn’t be other complications, but I don’t think we’d see results fast enough that we’d end up with a broken link of the food chain leading to ecosystem collapse.
ICastFist@programming.dev 1 week ago
The Aedes Aegypt can go fuck itself with all the diseases it spreads to us. Also, anywhere where it showed up as an unwanted guest, like all Americas, nature will just roll back 3 centuries or so.
mihor@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
- What screw worm??
- Exactly.
Scubus@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
what frost giants?
Vote odin
Yokozuna@lemmy.world 1 week ago
My only problem with it is the fact that you’re taking a major insect class out of the ecosystem and later on down the line it might have serious implications. There will never be enough research on the effects of it until it’s too late to reverse. I hate mosquitoes (I live in Southern L.A.) but I don’t think this is the answer.
HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 1 week ago
I think there was a campaign in china in the mid 20th century that tried to exterminate a bunch of pests like this and it lead to catastrophic famines or something.
“The Four Evils Campaign” I think it was called.
WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Sparrows. China killed them all then freaked when locust are all the crops. Millions died from famine. They had to import and reintroduce sparrows.
Yokozuna@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Not sure about that, but there was an account of something similar in India, I believe, where there was a chemical agent involved that buzzards were extremely susceptible to and wound up killing off most, if not all of the population. This led to carcasses being left to rot and then became vectors for disease and basically led to a chain reaction of events that caused a few million people to die.
I don’t know if killing off mosquitos would have quite as a profound effect as this, but there are so many things I feel like we have almost no understanding of when it comes to the natural world - we try to grasp the knowledge and that’s what science is, but we’re always learning new things. So to say there would be minimal consequences, I feel like is very short-sighted.
I’ve read in a few comments here that there are studies saying that it wouldn’t have a crazy effect - if anyone could link them so I can give them a read, I would appreciate it.