It is, again, an unglamorous specialism — but a critical one, for the fight against Zika as much as anything else. The really hi-tech, GM stuff — bring it on. It gets people excited, it gets the [research] papers in Nature. But the normal, everyday stuff — the pragmatic, frontline research — can make some of the biggest differences.
It is hard to prove a direct causal link between the exoticised enthusiasm for wiping out a species on the one hand and the underfunding of such crucial work on the other. All the same, there is a certain bitter irony that in an attempt to beat a disease whose impact will be felt most keenly by women and their unborn children, and which has been exacerbated by a shortage of funding for studies that would focus on the wellbeing of women in developing countries, we are contemplating a macho solution that entails sending male mosquitoes to impregnate as many females as possible, with the ultimate ambition of wiping the enemy off the face of the Earth.
Whatever the priorities, no scientist disputes that if the technology were to be perfected, the gene-drive plan would be a remarkable boon to public health. Yet there may be other, more abstract, objections contained in the eerie idea of that word: extinction, the permanent eradication of a species that has evolved and survived for thousands of years. Yet even Challenger acknowledges that such arguments might seem a bit abstract to the mother of a child who will be deformed because of Zika, or killed by malaria.
In the end, if the technical and ecological objections can be overcome, it seems unlikely that philosophical arguments for the sanctity of aedes aegypti will hold sway. The mosquito has so ravaged us, for so long, that for most people it has exhausted all rights of appeal. Pretty, whose work straddles the arts and sciences, has also written about extinction.
In his book, The Edge of Extinction, he considers how different cultures deal with the loss of species and habitats that surround them. It is fair to say that he is an advocate of conservation. But even he has his limit. And in most cases you can stop at that point. But here you can ask the second question: if there was a loss of a whole species, would there be a human benefit?
Should we wipe mosquitoes off the face of the Earth? Workers fumigating a Zika outbreak in Caracas, Venezuela. Reuse this content. Environment Climate crisis Wildlife Energy Pollution. Think again. Photo via Shutterstock. As unassuming as it may be, the mosquito is the most deadly animal in the world, killing hundreds of thousands of people and making millions more sick each year, according to the U. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Given the human toll of mosquito-borne illnesses, it might seem like the best solution would be to engineer a way to eradicate them from our planet.
Surely in this modern age there must be a way. That's because all living things play an important role in the ecosystems in which they exist, and removing one living thing from a habitat can disrupt all the other species within it. Take the much-maligned mosquito, for example. We think of them as an annoyance at best, a carrier of serious and even deadly diseases at worst. But they play a key role in many ecosystems, according to National Geographic.
Male mosquitoes eat nectar and, in the process, pollinate all manner of plants. These insects are also an important food source for many other animals, including bats, birds, reptiles, amphibians and even other insects. Serving as a food source for other animals is how they fit into the various food chains in places where they live. A food chain is essentially a "who eats what" in a particular ecosystem.
A food web is all the food chains that exist in an ecosystem, according to National Geographic. In a woodland habitat here in Will County, one food chain could include the grasses along the forest clearing, which are eaten by rabbits. The rabbits, in turn, are preyed upon by coyotes. The quality of life for countries burdened by mosquito-borne diseases would increase dramatically, affecting several areas of life.
Children would be healthier, which means they would miss school less often. Public health resources could be diverted to other priority health issues. The burdens on the health systems would be reduced. Countries may be able to recover the loss of gross domestic product malaria is responsible for. Unfortunately, the unknowns of eliminating an entire species are great. Phil Lounibos, entomologist, warns of the dangers of eliminating pollinators and food sources.
He also worries that whatever insects rise up to replace mosquitoes could be just as bad as — or worse than — mosquitoes. The unknowns are risky. What if the replacement spreads disease quicker and further than mosquitoes? And then there are the rainforests. Mosquitoes make it almost impossible for humans to live in tropical rainforests.
While concerns about deforestation are valid, mosquitoes may have actually slowed the destruction. While many scientists are hard at work determining if eradication is possible, and if it would be appropriate, others are going about the mosquito problem in different ways. A sensor has been developed that can detect the species of mosquitoes.
When a person wears the detector, they can be warned and track the disease-bearing mosquitoes, potentially managing future outbreaks.
Some scientists are studying what attracts mosquitoes to certain body odors which may give way to even more effective mosquito repellents. Other are working to make mosquitoes resistant to the parasites that cause dangerous diseases. If we had to venture a guess, we would bet that any reader would welcome a real solution for being bitten less often by mosquitoes. Give us a call today at in Austin or in Houston.
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Hypothetical Mosquito Eradication Mosquitoes have been around for more than million years. Which Animals Would Be Affected?
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