There are actually attempts being made to prevent the spread of malaria through eliminating mosquito populations. They release genetically modified mosquitoes who can only produce male offspring, who in turn have the same genetic modification. Eventually they overtake the population and hinder their ability to reproduce.

This article goes into some of the risks of eliminating mosquitoes: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/pdf/466432a.pdf

Bruce Harrison, an entomologist at the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources in Winston-Salem estimates that the number of migratory birds that nest in the tundra could drop by more than 50% without mosquitoes to eat.

Following on genetically modified mosquitoes, they have been also trying to create "better mosquitoes" by making them immune to malaria. The problem with their better mosquitoes is that they were weaker than the usual mozzie which does not help in them reproducing and spreading their gene but they do well in environments where malaria is present; They out survive the normal mozzies because they are immune to malaria.[Yep, them mozzies are affected by malaria in some extent.]

Excellent question because mosquitoes are also infected by the diseases they carry. These diseases (yellow fever, Dengue, malaria, etc.) are all adapted to invade the mosquito blood stream and infect its salivary glands where the pathogen builds up its numbers. Some of them do have slight negative effects on the mosquito's life span, fecundity, etc. However, do they "feel" it? Probably not as the infected organs do not have much in the way of "feedback" nerves connecting to the brain.

In the presence of malaria infected hosts, the better mozzies appear to lay eggs more than the normal ones and may replace normals at some point.

But they can't release it into the wild just yet for ecological reasons.

Quote from Exilement

There are actually attempts being made to prevent the spread of malaria through eliminating mosquito populations. They release genetically modified mosquitoes who can only produce male offspring, who in turn have the same genetic modification. Eventually they overtake the population and hinder their ability to reproduce.

This article goes into some of the risks of eliminating mosquitoes: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/pdf/466432a.pdf

Yeah they're trying to do that here too. I'm just wondering if there is anyone on the fringe claiming this will lead to some greater catastrophe if they're gone.

Quote from devi

We're humans, we care about what's convenient for us, not about the livelihood of animals.

I care about the livelihood of animals.

This might be off on a tangent, but surely wiping out all mosquitoes would not be as effective as wiping out malaria in a more general, multi species sense?

If you had the mosquitoes option I'd go for targeting malaria itself rather than the common carrier and not others, but sure, I guess if you only had the option to wipe out mosquitoes then that's a bit different.

Also somebody made a comment about how wiping out an entire species is bad. Species are really just categories for groups of animals that reproduce together, having half of two mosquito like species (of equal size) versus just having just one entire mosquito like species isn't that different.

Quote from Skeletonxf

This might be off on a tangent, but surely wiping out all mosquitoes would not be as effective as wiping out malaria in a more general, multi species sense?

If you had the mosquitoes option I'd go for targeting malaria itself rather than the common carrier and not others, but sure, I guess if you only had the option to wipe out mosquitoes then that's a bit different.

Well of course the better option would be to create a workable vaccine, I just had the impression that the thread aimed toward the topic that killing mosquitoes would be the more realistic goal and/or hypothetically speaking a vaccine wouldn't be created anytime soon.

Malaria is a protozoan, so I don't necessarily know if it reacts to medications any way similarly as bacteria respond to antibiotics. If it is though, medication at this point is dangerous because you run the risk of selecting towards resistant forms of Malaria via natural selection.

Also somebody made a comment about how wiping out an entire species is bad. Species are really just categories for groups of animals that reproduce together, having half of two mosquito like species (of equal size) versus just having just one entire mosquito like species isn't that different.

I don't really understand this comment. Generally killing off a species is usually not a good idea because each animal to an extent plays a role in the ecosystem, and in some cases you may accidentally kill off an important keystone species. I don't necessarily know the direct cause and effect of killing off specific species of mosquitoes that carry Malaria, and as Zed says it's most likely improbable that whatever the result it's unlikely to affect humans as much as malaria is doing to us now, but the point is getting rid of a part of a community can later cause a cascade of effects or revert back to it's previous state due to nature's natural tendency to fill up any available niches.

Okay, I hadn't thought about natural selection there, that's a good point.

I was saying killing off 1 species versus half killing off two nearly identical species is more or less the same, as in, the distinction of 'species' doesn't matter but the killingness obviously does.

Quote from Skeletonxf

Okay, I hadn't thought about natural selection there, that's a good point.

I was saying killing off 1 species versus half killing off two nearly identical species is more or less the same, as in, the distinction of 'species' doesn't matter but the killingness obviously does.

I think I need to rewind through this topic cause I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "half killing" lmao

Quote from Raptor

I think I need to rewind through this topic cause I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "half killing" lmao

Species A has a population of x
Species B has a population of y
x is a similar size to y

1) reduce x to 0 - Full killing of one species
2) multiply x by 0.5 and y by 0.5 - Half killing of two species

Quote from Skeletonxf

Species A has a population of x
Species B has a population of y
x is a similar size to y

1) reduce x to 0 - Full killing of one species
2) multiply x by 0.5 and y by 0.5 - Half killing of two species

I mean I get that, but the concept doesn't really mesh with me since you can't really use the results of quantities to predict the outcome of a species. When you kill all of a species, you literally make it extinct. When you kill half of a species, it isn't extinct. Thus, you give the species the chance to reproduce and revitalize their species after taking in the effects of genetic drift.

So I don't understand what you're trying to say when you mean that killing a species is equal to killing half of two species. By quantities, yes, the ratio of the amount of flies killed in each situation are the same, but each scenario that you speak of leads to clearly different results.

A key thing I tried to make clear in an earlier post was that Species A and B are extremely similar, thus when one is wiped out and now just the B species is reproducing afterwards this doesn't leave any more a gaping hole in the foodweb that messes up the environment than halving both Species A and B in pop.

Quote from Raptor

That seems like a highly improbable situation though. First, the two species would most likely cover different geographic areas since most species differentiate via allopatric speciation (granted, mosquitoes are a lot more flexible in terms of place than most organisms, but still). Second, having two species of mosquito fill the same niche and be that extremely similar is unlikely considering that both species would undergo competition for limited resources. Third of all, if the two species are extremely similar, it would very difficult to wipe out species A and still preserve the population of species B.

Okay, I guess I concede that in most cases the two species will in fact be different enough that it matters, even though the matter-ing there is due to them simply being different rather than the specific fact of them being a different species.

Quote from Skeletonxf

A key thing I tried to make clear in an earlier post was that Species A and B are extremely similar, thus when one is wiped out and now just the B species is reproducing afterwards this doesn't leave any more a gaping hole in the foodweb that messes up the environment than halving both Species A and B in pop.

That seems like a highly improbable situation though. First, the two species would most likely cover different geographic areas since most species differentiate via allopatric speciation (granted, mosquitoes are a lot more flexible in terms of place than most organisms, but still). Second, having two species of mosquito fill the same niche and be that extremely similar is unlikely considering that both species would undergo competition for limited resources. Third of all, if the two species are extremely similar, it would very difficult to wipe out species A and still preserve the population of species B.

Quote from GuardianTempest

I saw Deranged on tv yesterday, dubbed in Filipino because of the channel showing it. I don't really watch movies much so I kinda get enamored to the next "good movie" I see. It reminded me of a particular question I've yet to ask:

"Wouldn't it be nice all the mosquitoes in the world just went extinct regardless of ecological consquences?"

Mosquitoes. They suck blood and spread diseases like Dengue and Malaria. They don't have a proper place in the food chain and they don't have any benefits that I know of like waste breakdown and pollination. I believe that their sudden disappearance wouldn't really cause that much of a disturbance due to what they do. I'm not asking "How?", but rather "Is it a good idea?" and "What would happen if not?"

Same question applies to 3scary5me parasites like tapeworms, because they're scary shit that makes me shudder and favor artificial bodies when technology progresses enocuh.

I wish they were extinct. Where I'm from, you get stung every single day, with no way of knowing which ones are infected or not...

Quote from Nish

We as a race as inevitably going to end up raping nature anyway, so might as well get the mosquitoes out of the way earlier.

That's not necessarily true. There are people who are actively trying to conserve endangered species.

As for the arguments saying that life would adapt and move on if mosquitoes went extinct, well we can say that about pretty much any species. Different species may have a bigger impact than others if they went extinct, but life would eventually move on.

We also have ways to deal with pests like mosquitoes. For example, insect repellents, and mosquito tents. We also have treatments for diseases that they can give us like malaria.

Quote from Preserve

We also have treatments for diseases that they can give us like malaria.

And yet half a million die from it every year.

Imagine there was a guy going around choosing a school at random every day and blowing it up. Because that's the death toll we're talking about. If we had the chance to stop him, would we worry about who was going to feed his goldfish when he was gone?