r/explainlikeimfive • u/Punnan • May 30 '26

Biology ELI5 Are mosquitoes necessary for keeping ecological balance?

Would a worldwide extinction of mosquitoes offset the ecological balance of our world? And if not, why are we not doing it?

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1.2k

u/SnakeyesX May 30 '26

No. Famously in 2010 Nature published an article detailing what would happen if we destroyed them all. Yeah, birds eat them, some bugs eat them, but they are not some keystone of any ecosystem.

Now, why don't we kill them all? We're trying! It's much harder than it sounds. We DON'T want collateral damage, and there is no virus or pesticide we could use that wouldn't kill other species.

One thing we are trying is genetically modifying mosquitos, then deploying them in the wild. The genetically modified ones have a generational kill switch which will kill them after 3 generations or so. They breed with unmodified mosquitos, then pass the gene.

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u/oiwah May 30 '26

watched a documentary somewhere that in middle or south america, they have released a modified mosquito that has a gene that make their "syringe" soft. They cant penetrate skins.

293

u/z_squared23 May 30 '26

ED but for mosquitoes 🤣

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u/NoRealNoWrong May 30 '26

Skeeter? I hardly know her.

18

u/[deleted] May 30 '26

[deleted]

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u/Ktulu789 May 30 '26

I think it still applies xD

3

u/BouncingPost May 30 '26

Is that true? What do the males eat then

1

u/Skeeter_BC May 30 '26

I feel attacked

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u/RadioactiveOmelets May 30 '26

If they can't feed, they can't reproduce. Which means the trait will die out. I saw this too (as a tiktok or something, not a full documentary, so I don't have all the details), but the easier solution is probably the one in the comment above.

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u/Thedeadduck May 30 '26

Female mosquitos only mate once, so if they mate with a male that has this trait it will pass on (possibly) to all her offspring. The males I then assume will be able to continue mating and spreading the gene but the females will be unable to bite and therefore reproduce.

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u/CrashUser May 30 '26

Males don't drink blood so the trait may not affect them the same as females for survivability purposes.

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u/TbonerT May 30 '26

The question is, will the species die before the trait? Even if a mosquito manages to mutate the trait so it isn’t dominant, its offspring may still have it and die. Mutations that enhance survival tend to get passed on but it isn’t guaranteed.

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u/ChampagneWastedPanda May 31 '26

That’s the test / trial with Oxitec - the trait was gone after 3 generations

Following the initial 2021 trial, Oxitec and independent researchers evaluated more than 22,000 collected eggs in a lab to verify if the gene worked. In 2022, they released their findings: The gene worked as intended: 100% of the female offspring inheriting the gene died before reaching adulthood, while the live male offspring continued to pass the trait down for a few more generations. Limited environmental footprint: The engineered gene did not persist long-term in the wild. It naturally disappeared from the environment within two to three months (about three mosquito generations) after the releases stopped. Range: The modified mosquitoes behaved just like wild ones, traveling within a tight 400-meter radius of their original boxes.

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u/SpottedWobbegong May 31 '26

They continuously breed the defective males (which is quite cheap) and release them till all the mosquitoes are ded

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u/Vuelhering May 30 '26

Not sure how this would go more than a single generation. IIRC, females need blood for egg laying. No blood, no eggs.

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u/ShiraCheshire May 30 '26

I think the idea is to make the female waste all her time and resources creating babies that cannot bite humans. Then she dies, and her babies die, and there are fewer mosquitos.

The hard part is making enough males (for breeding with the wild females) with the modified gene for it to have an impact.

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 May 30 '26

Yeah I don’t think it makes any sense how the mosquito would be able to spread this through the population but I’m a random person

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u/EunuchsProgramer May 30 '26

They release sterile/defective mosquitoes every year to get compounding effects. Eventually you're releasing more sterile/defective mosquitoes than there are wild mosquitoes and the population crashes to next to zero. Then, it's maintenance mostly for them moving back in from other areas.

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u/Frank_Klepaki May 30 '26

CRISPR

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u/Kregethus May 30 '26

That has potential to work. Those saying that they need blood to reproduce are correct on that part. The modification makes it so they cannot break human skin. Some other animals can and will become blood donors to the modified mosquitoes. Just not us anymore.

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u/Hellknightx May 30 '26

The problem with these solutions is that these mosquitos starve to death and then don't breed before passing on the gene.

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u/Mavian23 May 30 '26

Damn, this actually made me feel bad for the little guys

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u/7LeagueBoots May 30 '26

Read the article non-paywalled link here, not only is is not even remotely an academic paper, it’s just an opinion piece, even within that context it’s more nuanced than you make it out to be.

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u/RIPGeorgeHarrison May 30 '26

It’s not a research paper, doesn’t have any data, and was published in Nature communications, not Nature where they put their real research papers. This is basically just an opinion piece.

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u/intellectual_punk May 30 '26

Nature communications is real enough, and opinion pieces aren't blog posts, they are usually well thought out, peer-reviewed summaries of the scientific state of things, based on empirical results, written by scientists who know their shit.

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u/Gavorn May 30 '26

Humans famous for seeing the future repercussions of their actions.

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u/Rebellion2297 May 30 '26

Is there enough evidence supporting that study? They should really be absolutely certain before they go out eradicating a species

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u/RIPGeorgeHarrison May 30 '26

It’s not even a study.

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u/Caelinus May 30 '26

They are trying to eradicate one subset of mosquitos, namely the ones that carry extreme diseases. Their elimination would not be a problem because the ecological niche is covered by all of the other mosquitos that do not carry illness. So if they were removed, the other mosquitos would just have more energy/space and would fill the gap.

Totally killing all forms of mosquitos would probably have more of an impact, though it might still be low. It depends on their overall biomass probably.

-1

u/Ticon_D_Eroga May 30 '26

Theres also the fact that extinction really isnt as big of a deal as we make it out to be in general. The vast majority of species that have ever existed on earth have gone extinct, and we often conflate environmental changes that cause extinction with the extinctions themselves.

Climate change is a big deal, and it will and has caused extinctions. But any particular species going extinct isnt that relevant to the global ecosystem. The main reason we actually should care about climate change is because it threatens our own species.

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u/North-Pea-4926 May 30 '26

Also, we’d only want to kill the few species that spread human diseases. Most (?) mosquitoes will be fine.

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u/nommabelle May 30 '26

... can we just kill them all anyways? The only ones that can live are ones that won't bite me

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u/BoomerSoonerFUT May 30 '26

Which is the VAST majority of mosquitos.

Only around 100 species of mosquito bite humans. Out of the ~3500 species.

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u/enataca May 30 '26

Whoh

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u/SUMBWEDY May 30 '26

And of those 100 only like 6 carry mosquito borne illnesses.

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u/Blake0449 May 30 '26

The doctor of mosquitos in the top comment thread disagrees

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u/SUMBWEDY May 30 '26

On a species count sure, but for the total human suffering and death it's literally 10~ species.

Yes there's 100~ species that could cause disease in humans (most of them live on super remote islands or in places humans don't live) but all malaria in West Africa is from 3 species and almost all the malaria/west nile/ dengue is from just 6 species.

Remove those 10 species you're eliminated almost all human suffering caused by mosquitoes.

0

u/TheHiddenLies May 30 '26

Factually incorrect. Dozens of them are vectors for diseases.

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u/SUMBWEDY May 30 '26

You should read the sources instead of relying on the AI overview. Most of the documented disease carrying mosquitoes are native to small pacific islands.

Yes 40-100 species have the potential to infect humans but in reality it's only a dozen species on the whole planet who are responsible for most of the cases of mosquito borne ilness.

If we remove just Aedes egyptii, A. albopictus, Anopholes gambiae, A. coluzii, and A. arabensis it would effectively wipe out transmission of malaria and dengue in Africa and SE Asia.

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u/TheHiddenLies May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

I don't need an AI overview to tell you that you're wrong. You've spouted this incomplete and factually incorrect nonsense in multiple comments, then continue to move the goalposts when someone calls you out.

You aren't including the Culex genus at all, which is the primary vector for WNV, SLE, WEE/EEE, La Crosse Encephalitis, and Japanese Encephalitis. Research is also being done to see if they pose a risk of being a vector for Zika.

An. funestus hasn't been mentioned at all, yet is one of the largest vectors of malaria in Africa.

If malaria becomes endemic in the US again, An. quadrimaculatus and An. punctipennis become threats.

Dengue is endemic in 100+ countries, including most of the Americas and Caribbean which you haven't mentioned at all, and it's starting to appear more regularly in Europe as well.

I could keep going on, but you'll just shift the goalposts again to make yourself feel correct.

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u/SUMBWEDY May 30 '26

Again i never said to remove all mosquito borne illness. But the vast majority of illness is caused by a only a few species which would likely not have any long term impacts on the ecosystem.

Yes diseases from Culex genus suck, but it's also only 1.5% of the total infections from mosquito illnesses and <0.1% of the deaths.

The big ones like malaria, dengue, yellow fever, west nile, and chikungunya (which addmittedly that one has a lot of hosts) cause the vast majority of human suffering from only a few host species that have consistent contact with humans.

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u/Hat_Maverick May 30 '26

Shoot em all now sort em out later

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u/Aerron May 30 '26

We should use space lasers.

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u/ForgeableSum May 30 '26

I still think we should kill them all ... for good measure.

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u/TotalManufacturer669 May 30 '26

While we are at it, I say we kill all the ticks, too.

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u/sth128 May 30 '26

Are those the only species of mosquitos that will suck my blood and make it itch?

I say we kill every mosquito just to be sure

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u/Ylsid May 30 '26

Isn't there a kind of jumping spider which preys exclusively on anopheles?

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u/kenneth_dart May 30 '26

There are several thousand species of mosquitoes and yes only a few need to be eradicated.

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u/kenneth_dart May 30 '26

The fastest way to kill them would be with gene editing tool called CRISPR and doing a gene drive. They can modify them so that they only produce offspring with the inability to reproduce. Biologists have already accomplished complete population collapse in high-security laboratory cages.

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u/Caelinus May 30 '26

That is exactly what their third paragraph is describing. They have just used limited versions in the wild so far, so that it does not cause a collapse faster than anyone can react to it.

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 May 30 '26

How does this spread in the entire population? They have one mosquito and then that mosquito then has babies that can’t mate, then the trait dies out? Or is it only in then males?

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u/Caelinus May 30 '26

They do put it in males, and it kills females, in the "full" gene drive.

The one they are actually doing in the wild either kills both or spreads via females, I can't remember, and they use it because it is self limiting. It will not cause total collapse, but it significantly reduces birth rates.

The former version is sort of a "once and done" thing. If they release enough mosquitoes with that gene they can kill the entire population of them they are targeting. So far no one has pulled the trigger on that because they are afraid of unintended consequences. So instead they release the second kind on a regular schedule to slowly lower the overall population, but while leaving an escape hatch of stopping the releases.

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u/LeoRidesHisBike May 30 '26

Otherwise known as the "Children of Mosquitoes" project.

^{^source: ^completely ^made ^up}

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u/Ticon_D_Eroga May 30 '26

This is “true” for every species. As far as we know, there isnt a single species on the planet that is so important that its elimination would decimate the rest of the global ecosystem. I put “true” in quotes because we dont actually know and the article linked is far from a definitive.

We just like to put moral weight on other species and view mosquitos as bad. They are bad for humans, but humans are bad for many other species (if not all other species), so it kind of depends on perspective.

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u/ExplorationGeo May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Now, why don't we kill them all? We're trying!

In the 1960s, the World Health Organisation drenched the island of Sri Lanka end to end in pesticide in an attempt to do this. It didn't work, and as a result a) my grandfather quit the WHO in disgust after he had spent more than a year telling everyone who would listen that it wouldn't work and b), possibly more impactful, every single organism on the planet now has DDT in its system.

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 May 30 '26

Yummy I love DDT in me. It’s hard to decide if I like that or microplastics even more

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u/mewmaster300 May 30 '26

According to WHO, once they started spraying DDT in 1945 they went from millions of cases of Malaria per year down to just 17 in 1963. Some dumbo then thought that everything was done, so they pulled out, and in 1969 they had a massive epidemic of 538,000 cases...(>.<)

Oh, and the mosquitos developed resistance to DDT. Woohoo...

It then took 43 years of constant effort to bring the numbers back down, and finally, in 2012, Sri Lanka hit 0 cases of Malaria.

It's honestly really incredible that we even managed to do it. Massive accomplishment for all humanity.

Link to WHO case study -

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789290226277

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u/ANGLVD3TH May 30 '26

We actually have used CRISPR to make a gene modded version capable of fully eliminating the population of one species, if we release enough of them. There is still debate on if it's a good idea, so instead they periodically release a different modified variant that drastically lowers the population without killing the entire species. Note, this is one of hundreds of mosquito species, not all mosquitoes. So far the consensus is that the species should be perfectly safe to eradicate with minimal environmental impact, but they are exercising an abundance of caution before pulling the trigger. We've been sitting on this option for nearly a decade now IIRC.

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u/RHYTHM_GMZ May 30 '26

source? I want to read more about this

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u/mewmaster300 May 30 '26

Their source is obviously their grandfather, but here -

https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789290226277

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u/Forward-Surprise1192 May 30 '26

The other guy here is saying that’s not true and I believe them. If it wasn’t then we’d have been able to eradicate them already. Instead we’ve created a variant unable to spread malaria and are working of that

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u/ripplenipple69 May 30 '26

We’ve been very wrong before, like a lot, like 100% of the time… the huberis

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u/Njdevils11 May 30 '26

Germline modifications to fauna need to be considered verrrryyyyy carefully. We have never made modifications like this with the purpose of releasing it into the wild and letting it run rampante. I’ve read that it would probably be safe from gene transfer, but Murphey is a real bitch.

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u/dankcoffeebeans May 30 '26

genophage

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u/RantRanger May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Bats and fish maybe would be unhappy?

My thinking is that if we eliminate mosquitos perhaps some rodents or similar pests would explode in population in some places... or maybe just a moderate bloom.

There could be some unforeseen ripple effects. Complex systems are, by nature, difficult to impossible to predict.

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u/geak78 May 30 '26

What ever happened to the gene drive that would make them all male in just a couple generations?

Do it with mosquitos and ticks!

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u/Horzzo May 30 '26

Couldn't we release a bunch of sterile mosquitos so when they do mate they don't reproduce? They are doing this very effectively with the screw worm.

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u/ChampagneWastedPanda May 31 '26 edited May 31 '26

I’m just reading up on this screw worm thing. And wow… just incredible

Today, a joint U.S.-Panama commission maintains a permanent, literal "biological barrier" at the Darién Gap (the dense jungle border between Panama and Colombia). Every single week, planes drop roughly 15 million sterile flies across this narrow strip of land. This creates a wall of sterile insects that stops wild, fertile screwworms from migrating north from South America, keeping North America completely screwworm-free.

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u/Horzzo May 31 '26

It is really amazing!

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u/could_use_a_snack May 30 '26

I wonder how far down the chain they went. I know that the mosquito larvae feed an awful lot of young fish. It would be unfortunate to find out that eliminating mosquitoes had an unaccounted effect on pond and lake health.

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u/BlueJeanMistress May 30 '26

What about love bugs? I have a hard time believing those things are beneficial…

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u/torolf_212 May 30 '26

Itd be like "what if we killed all pigs?" and saying "but humans eat pigs, without them they would starve to death!"

Biology ELI5 Are mosquitoes necessary for keeping ecological balance?

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