A world without mosquitoes (2010) | Hacker News Reader

A world without mosquitoes (2010)

nature.com

92 pointsdenzil_correa56 comments

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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

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

Jesus. Nobody said nature wouldn't adapt.

I'm saying that there WILL BE unintended consequences. That are unknown.

Or we could breed GMO mosquitoes that are the same as ordinary mosquitoes except they have somehow been made inhospitable for malaria.

>Wiping out a species deliberately flies in the face of the philosophy of environmental conservation that we all learned in school and from media.

Not necessarily. If wiping out a single specie provides enough economic value to save every other specie from their current path to extinction then it is still in the interest of environmental conservation to do so.

> If wiping out a single specie provides enough economic value to save every other specie from their current path to extinction

Are you suggesting we wipe humans out?

That would probably suck for cattle and several other species.

The cattle we end up killing in brutal and inhumane ways? They'll be fine with all the grass we won't be cutting anymore

That's obvious. Vegetarian comment = instantaneous downvote. Meh.

Well, the ones who survive would be fine, eventually. In the short term there'd be a horrible Malthusian die-off of those many cattle which were in excess of the post-agricultural carrying capacity, and which had theretofore lived purely as a result of human ingenuity and effort.

It's just possible, I think, that you got downvoted less for whatever reason your apparent dietary persecution complex leads you to imagine, than for seeming not to have thought this point through.

"dietary persecution complex" is cute... Maybe you didn't think that currently cattle are not "fine" at all. Unless for "fine" you mean enslavement and forced feeding with chemicals, and being alive just to produce meat. I didn't that not to be downvoted you should express the obvious with style and terms good for a scientific dissertation. Thanks for enlightening me.

The only thing that matters in the context of evolution is passing on genes. In this respect, the genes which code for cattle are incredibly successful, largely due to human interference. It would significantly decrease the success of the species, and while the surviving cattle would be happier the individual's happiness is not relevant to the species' success, so long as breeding continues.

I think the obvious big difference between microorganisms like polio or smallpox and insects like mosquitoes is that the microorganisms aren't really part of the food chain, they don't have predator species that rely on them for a food source. Mosquitoes, on the other hand, are food for many other species, birds, bats, other insects, and completely removing them from the environment, removes that food source from those other species. It's possible that the predator species would expand their use of other food sources (possibly, outcompeting other species for those sources), or that they'd continue on in reduced numbers. Or it's possible that removing mosquitoes starts a domino effect, where former predator species go extinct (and their predators do the same or switch food sources), or enter into more intensive competition for other food sources, resulting in competing species either going extinct, finding new food sources (there's the domino effect again), or reducing population numbers.

We've done it with other animals (passenger pigeon) without the world ending, but I smell unintended consequences... Something as ubiquitous as the mosquito is hooked into the ecosystem in a lot of ways.

    microorganisms aren't really part of the food chain

That is not strictly speaking true. Microbes in the soil have a lot to do with the healthy/unhealthy growth of many plants. Microbes in our gut have a drastic effects on our ability to digest food. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they don't have an effect.

I do believe however that the sheer variety speed of mutation in that portion of the food change insulates it from a lot of damage. Perhaps the same could be said for Insects as well I don't know.

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.

> 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.

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...

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.

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

http://www.radiolab.org/story/kill-em-all/

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.

It's not really a new idea. Seen any homo neanderthalensis around lately?

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

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.

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.

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

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

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... 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.

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

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.

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.

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).

> the irradiation of mosquitoes

Eradication. Irradiated mosquitoes would just make our problems worse.

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

Could we even do that? How?

A good start would be some injection or orally taken medication that causes mosquitoes to die after they feed on us.

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

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

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

http://www.malariaworld.org/blog/will-laser-technology-rid-a...

https://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120903/0...

There's some good work being done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique – the current trials happening work by genetically engineer mosquitoes so they can't produce a certain protein that is important at the larval stage. They raise a bunch of mosquitoes, giving them the necessary protein (that they can't find in the wild), then sort out only the male mosquitoes, and release them in large numbers. The GM male mosquitoes overwhelm the normal mosquitoes in the area, but all their offspring will die. Seems like the big trials are all happening in Brazil (e.g., http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25457-brazil-approves-...)

It's done on a per-species basis of course, and they are targeting only the mosquitoes that spread disease. The worst species are often invasive species anyway, and aren't the only blood-sucking mosquito in these areas. So while it's a tool that could potentially be used to eliminate mosquitoes generally, that's not how it is being used now.

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.

>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 ...

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.

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.

Other small flying insects.

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

What's the best mosquito repellent?

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