Every year, 247 million people worldwide are infected with malaria due to mosquitoes. Mosquitoes can also spread yellow fever, dengue fever, Japanese encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya virus and West Nile virus, resulting in a greater medical and financial burden. Gitavati? Murphy has been studying mosquitoes for more than 2 years and has been trying to find ways to limit the parasites they carry. However, she wants them to disappear from the earth.
what would happen if there were no mosquitoes in the world? Will anyone miss them? Nature throws questions at scientists who study mosquito biology and ecology and gets some amazing answers.
polar tundra
if all mosquitoes disappear, the most affected area may be the arctic tundra, where Aedes pubescens and Aedes nigricans live. Scientists hold different views on what will happen if this biota disappears. Bruce, an entomologist at the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources? Harrison predicted that without mosquitoes as food, the number of migratory birds nesting in the tundra would be reduced by more than 5%. Kathy, a wildlife biologist in fairbanks, Alaska? Courby believes that Arctic mosquitoes do not appear in large numbers in the stomach samples of migratory birds, and midges (chironomids) are the more important food sources. "Humans may overestimate the number of mosquitoes in the Arctic tundra." She said.
Aerial food
Without mosquito larvae, hundreds of fish would have to change their diets to survive. A large number of birds that prey on mosquitoes are likely to turn to other insects, which will multiply in the "post-mosquito era" to replace the mosquito niche. But other insect-eating animals and plants may not think of them at all: bats mainly prey on moths, and mosquitoes account for less than 2% in their stomachs. Janet, a medical entomologist at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention? McAllister asked, "Would you choose a 22-ounce moth steak or a 6-ounce mosquito burger?" There are many choices on the menu, and it seems that most insect predators will not starve in a world without mosquitoes.
eco-rivets?
Mosquito larvae constitute a considerable biomass in the global aquatic ecosystem, and they can exist in all water bodies. "There are many creatures that can handle organic debris, and mosquitoes are not the only one, let alone the most important one," giuliano said. "If you take out a rivet on the wing of an airplane, it is impossible for the airplane to stop flying."
If mosquitoes provide "ecosystem services"-that is, people benefit from nature, it may be a strong reason to continue to let mosquitoes exist. However, the fact is that we don't need anything from mosquitoes except to let them go away. In the end, we don't seem to find that mosquitoes can do something that other creatures can't.
Maybe except this one-they are very good at sucking blood from one animal and then sticking it into another animal, which provides an ideal way for the spread of pathogenic microorganisms. "The ecological effect of eliminating harmful mosquitoes is that the population will increase, and this is the result." Strickman said. Many lives are no longer suffering from diseases, and many countries are no longer plagued by malaria. For example, in sub-Saharan Africa, the elimination of mosquitoes may increase the gross national product by 1.3%, which can be used to accelerate local development.
Therefore, although humans will inadvertently push beneficial species (from tuna to coral) to the brink of extinction, human efforts have failed to seriously affect the survival of mosquitoes. "They don't occupy an impregnable position in the environment," said Joe, an entomologist with the American Mosquito Control Association. Conlon said, "If we can make them disappear tomorrow, the ecosystem they are active in will probably burp, and then continue to operate calmly. Naturally, there will be other species to replace mosquitoes, and it is unclear whether that species is good or bad."