Should we kill all mosquitoes?

[Plazma Inferno!]

“The level of alarm is extremely high,” said the head of the World Health Organization on Thursday, describing the spread of Zika virus around the world. As well it should be: The disease, which seems likely to be causing birth defects, could affect millions of people in several dozen countries.
Mosquito-borne diseases kill hundreds of thousands of people every year. Malaria alone claims the lives of 6 million people per decade, mostly small children. The economic costs are similarly staggering, likely in the tens of billions of dollars every year. When researchers totaled up the losses caused by a single mosquito-related illness (dengue fever) in a single mosquito-ridden country (Brazil), it came out to $1.35 billion annually, not including the $1 billion that must be spent to control the spread of dengue-infected flies.
The author of this article states that now is the time to wipe the disease-carrying critters off the face of the Earth.

http://www.slate.com/articles/healt...e_a_global_scourge_and_must_be_stopped.2.html

But is that easy to accomplish and what would happen if we really wipe them out? How would it affect other species (that feed on them or that depend on their pollination, like cocoa)?

 

[sculptor]

echoes of Rachel Carson?

 

[origin]

This is a poster child for unintended consequences. 50% of the mosquitos are pollenators. Mosquito larva are vital for aquatic ecosystems. Zika and other mosquito borne illnesses are terrible and we need to do something, but wiping out a life form, expecially one that is in such huge numbers seems very scary to me.

 

[DaveC426913]

Sure, because mosquitoes aren't a critical part of the food chain foundation.
Bats, birds and fish will get along just fine without their staple food.
And predators that feed upon bats birds and fish certainly won't perish if we take way the food of the creatures they require for survival.

 

[origin]

Sure, because mosquitoes aren't a critical part of the food chain foundation.
Bats, birds and fish will get along just fine without their staple food.
And predators that feed upon bats birds and fish certainly won't perish if we take way the food of the creatures they require for survival.

You forgot to click the sarcasm button...

 

[billvon]

The author of this article states that now is the time to wipe the disease-carrying critters off the face of the Earth.

Heck yes! And not just the mosquitoes. I got stung by a bee the other day, and bee stings kill thousands of people worldwide every year. Those deadly pests have to go as well. And rodents carry bubonic plague; how can we justify letting them live?

Once we have wiped out all those deadly parasites and pests the world will be a better place, and we will reap the rewards of our actions.

 

[iceaura]

There are species of mosquito that have evolved to specialize in feeding on humans, and species that are invasive and doing ecological harm due to being spread by humans far beyond their native ranges. We could wipe them out without great risk.

In theory. Dunno how that would be accomplished.

 

[paddoboy]

I get to Fiji a fair bit, and I really love the place, just as the local mosquitoes seem to love me and my great white hulk so much.
On many ventures into the interior, they simply ignore the local populace and congregate and show their true feelings for my big white hulk.
Why would I want to kill mosquitoes? [tic mode on of course ]

 

[iceaura]

A lot of the South Sea Islands had no mosquitos until the whaling and trade voyages introduced them.

One could wipe them out on those islands at no ecological cost whatsoever - maybe a gain.

(Fiji is not one of those places)

 

[Plazma Inferno!]

Here's an interesting graph, showing the world's deadliest animals, according to WHO.

http://skillsandbusiness.com/worlds-deadliest-animals/

 

[Jake Arave]

The mosquito genus Aedes, most specifically Aedes Aegypti (V. for Yellow Fever, Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika)
A. Aegypti is one of the most medically significant annoyances in the bug world.
Researchers have successfully implemented a self-limiting gene to an isolated population of A. Aegypti with very promising results. [1]
More research has been conducted though, and it may lead to a more ecologically safer eradication of the diseases from the human population -- transgenic mosquitoes it seems to be in this case. Anopheles stephensi is another mosquito murderer that is a vector for Malaria. Scientists have successfully genetically modified these mosquitoes to become resistant to the very disease they are a vector for, the best part about it is that it spreads to roughly 99.5% of their offspring. [2]
The bacteria Wolbachia is also quite successful in eliminating certain viruses like dengue before they are able to be spread via infectious biting. [3]

sources:
http://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0003864 [1]
http://www.pnas.org/content/112/49/E6736 [2]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23133693 [3]

Further reading and ecology of mosquitoes:
http://www.cdc.gov/zika/transmission/index.html (Information on Zika mosquitoes)
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1815/20151549 (Information on ecological impact of mosquito eradication)
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a/box/1.html (History of the "War on Mosquitoes"