Engineering the Extinction of 40 Species of Mosquitoes

http://rockstarresearch.com/engineering-the-extinction-of-40-species-of-mosquitoes/

by olalonde • 12 years ago

89 29 12 years ago

zachrose• 12 years ago

This links to Janet Fang's article in Nature: http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html

The thesis of that article is that nothing of ecological significance would happen without mosquitos, but the examples given don't seem even close to conclusive.

We know many species of fish and birds that eat mosquitos and mosquito larvae. From a few minutes of internet surfing, it doesn't seem like anyone knows whether other insects would take their place or and how quickly that would happen.

IANA biologist, but maybe fish and birds can survive a couple months while something takes the place of the comparatively short-lived mosquito? In any case this whole idea seems totally under-researched.

esturk• 12 years ago

From the first article, it mentioned that we have eradicated similar disease vectors like screwworm and melon fly before, so what have been the environmental impact of that so far?

jacquesm• 12 years ago

What percentage of the next level up on the food chain lives off mosquitoes? What percentage lives of screwworms and Melon flies?

I have no idea about the answers, but if there is a significant difference there then that might be where trouble could come from.

The problems really start at the reservoir hosts, the mosquitoes are just the transmitters. Controlling the reservoir hosts might be more feasible than eradicating 40 species of mosquito, it sounds like a very ambitious plan to me.

Panama had only 2 problematic species around the (prospective) canal zone.

Eradicating those mosquitoes to allow construction of the canal to proceed without the crews succumbing to Malaria or Yellow Fever was a huge success:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_measures_during_the_cons...

tritium• 12 years ago

  maybe
  couple months
  something

Good luck with that. Hope you didn't need those "bird" and "fish" things.

sliverstorm• 12 years ago

I hate that article. I swear it spends its entire length illustrating one thing, and then draws as the conclusion the exact opposite.

Taken all together, then, mosquitoes would be missed in the Arctic — but is the same true elsewhere?

Many species of insect, spider, salamander, lizard and frog would also lose a primary food source.

Without mosquitoes, thousands of plant species would lose a group of pollinators.

Yet the summary:

Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang

jrkelly• 12 years ago

Oxitec are the ones to follow in this space. Really awesome work: http://www.oxitec.com

DustinCalim• 12 years ago

I don't think it's possible right now for us to predict how the world would change if there were no mosquitos. I expect they play some important role that we don't yet understand. Bees come to mind

andrewchoi• 12 years ago

One of the takeaways of the article for me was that it's a small subset of all mosquito species that are conveying this disease. I'm not an ecologist, but wouldn't the elimination of one sort of (disease vector) mosquito lead to a different (non-disease vector) species taking over the niche in the ecosystem?

nn3• 12 years ago

Some other mosquitos would likely take over the "human" niche yes

But if the Malaria parasite is gone they may not be infected. If it's not gone the parasite would eventually adapt to the new mosquitos.

tokai• 12 years ago

The article is only talks about killing off a small subset of all mosquito species.

hansjorg• 12 years ago

Radiolab recently did a bit on this (Kill 'em all):

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

NIL8• 12 years ago

I live in a mosquito infested area and I have had malaria. Personally, I would love to see the end of all mosquitoes, even if it meant losing a few fish species.

However, even with an incredible amount of research and preparation, eliminating mosquitoes would have an untold number of effects. One effect would most certainly be the exponential growth of the human population. This could be a more difficult pest than mosquitoes.

derekp7• 12 years ago

This is actually addressed in the article. If people are reasonably certain that all their children will survive to adulthood, they tend to have fewer children.

MisterBastahrd2• 12 years ago

Supply and demand, I guess. A higher survival rate is going to mean more competition for resources. Increased competition yields higher prices. Higher prices usually mean parents decide to have less kids. Of course, I think industrialization plays a huge role too. If you have a family in an agrarian third world country, then more kids equal more labor, and as long as that kid is healthy and productive, having him is a net positive for income.

Steuard• 12 years ago

Someone else has already commented that populations have tended to stabilize quite quickly when childhood mortality drops. Worries about exponential growth always seem to fizzle out within a generation. So I don't think this is a practical concern.

But honestly, quite apart from that, I really think you need to be more alert to the moral and personal implications of your thinking. Even ignoring your use of the word "pest" to refer to human beings (which I'm sure you meant in a joking or ironic way, but is still pretty horrible when you actually stop and consider it), the underlying message of your point here is deeply troubling.

No matter what concerns you may have about population growth, what your point here boils down to is this: even if we have the power to prevent it, you might be willing to leave thousands or millions of mothers and fathers to watch their children die before their eyes. You might consider a respectful visit to look at (say) Eric Meyer's tremendous pain this weekend to get a taste of what your calculation would actually translate to on a human scale.

I know there are hard choices that we face in life, but this isn't one of them. Human overpopulation can be addressed via education and birth control, which I will assert are unquestionably better options than knowingly condemning countless other people to high rates of preventable childhood mortality. Even if those routes were harder and more expensive, they'd still be better. But in fact, as already noted, history has shown that these concerns are self-correcting.

Houshalter• 12 years ago

Killing children with malaria doesn't seem like an acceptable method of population control.

ricardobeat• 12 years ago

"Engineering a major environmental fuck-up"

qwerta• 12 years ago

Article quotes 6 digits numbers to exterminate mosquitoes over large areas. I believe that is within reach of local governments. Even Kickstarter campaign could fund it. So the question is more when, rather then if.

Camillo• 12 years ago

According to the article, only a small fraction of mosquito species carry diseases harmful to humans. Are there predators that depend solely or mainly on those specific species for food? Could other species take up the disease vector role if the currently harmful species were eliminated?

king_jester• 12 years ago

Every time I read an article about this kind of thing, the big selling point usually refers to political and economic ease of eliminating a species of mosquito compared to other trying to fix distribution of medicine and improving infrastructure and health care access.

This seems kind of backwards to me. Wouldn't working on the distribution problem be more effective than eliminating mosquito species? Obviously this is a much more difficult problem, but improvements in this area have benefits beyond disease elimination and treatment. That such things are difficult to achieve via current philanthropy efforts seems to highlight such philanthropy as flawed and in need of adjustment.

ISL2• 12 years ago

“What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!'

Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

afarrell• 12 years ago

A warm sentiment to be sure, but wonder if it also applies to the orcs marching across the Pelennor, whom you know are intending or enslaved to deal death. Do they also deserve pity and mercy? If not, then why do mosquitos?

ISL2• 12 years ago

In the quote above, Gandalf only advises that one should not strike without need. In the cases of both mosquitoes and orcs, it's not at all clear that xenocide is requisite to ensure the safety of humans or the many dwellers of Middle Earth.

coldtea2• 12 years ago

Engineering the Extinction of 40 Species of Mosquitoes

Hmm, to me it sounds like:

Screw science (which takes time), let's apply half-learned stuff in real life instead and see what sticks.

E.g let's apply what little we know to extinguish mosquitoes we don't like, despite not fully knowning the ecological consequences of our actions. Hopefully we won't have to deal with the mess (or there won't be a mess).

After all we did something similar before. If you do something once and it turned out OK, then even if you don't understand it, it will always come out OK in any other context, right?

Engineering the Extinction of 40 Species of Mosquitoes

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