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A Purdue researcher and a team of scientists working on a new insecticide argue that mosquitoes should not simply be made extinct due to their role in various ecosystems. Catherine Hill, a professor of entomology, and her team are developing an insecticide that will suppress mosquitoes' ability to transmit diseases without killing the insect or interfering with other life forms. The team is based in Discovery Park, a research park dedicated to using interdisciplinary teams to solve global problems. Hill's research was one of the winners of Discovery Park's Big Idea Challenge, a program that provides resources to interdisciplinary teams with innovative research.
"For the last 20 years I've been trying to figure out how to kill mosquitoes, and then I had this epiphany where, morally, I'm just not OK with it anymore," she said.
There has been a lack of research in preserving mosquitoes because researchers have looked mostly at ways to eradicate them. Therefore, Hill thinks it is essential to consider all the possible effects of wiping out an organism that has existed for thousands of years. She points out that mosquitoes have co-evolved with many species, so there are likely other organisms that depend on them as a food source.
https://phys.org/news/2017-07-mosquitoes.html
[Source]: Why mosquitoes should not be eliminated
I was reminded of:
Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room. - Christine Todd Whitman
Should there be a "Save the Mosquito" movement?
(Score: 2) by compro01 on Tuesday July 11 2017, @10:05PM (5 children)
Eliminate the specific species that are disease vectors.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 11 2017, @10:11PM
Then how will those diseases spread?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday July 11 2017, @11:14PM (3 children)
Quite. There was an article on here a while back about a plan to use a gene-drive to wipe out the specific species that feed on humans and spread disease. A species which is an invasive organism almost everywhere on the planet to begin with. Wipe them out and other flying pollen-eaters, even other mosquitoes, will fill the niche.
My only objection to that plan is that gene-drives are potentially extremely dangerous, and essentially impossible to remove short of the extinction of the host species - you can remove a specific modification, but you will always leave a new gene-drive in your wake, ripe for mutation until the last carrier dies out. Combine that with the fact that the boundaries between species are often far more permeable than classically imagined, with interbreeding between the odd "corner case" mutants sometimes being possible, and we could find ourselves facing a major problem.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 12 2017, @12:15AM (2 children)
Yeah, what he said.
In theory, selective removal of the "problem" species sounds great.
In practice, we don't really know as much as most people think we do about species variation and distribution. We also don't know how well these "species specific" death vectors will stay within the target species.
Personally, I like the robot approach: make a self-replicating machine that identifies the target species and then fries it with high power lasers, what could possibly go wrong?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by EETech1 on Thursday July 13 2017, @03:04AM (1 child)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_laser [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 13 2017, @03:39AM
Now, self-replicating...
🌻🌻 [google.com]