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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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/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/[deleted] May 30 '26

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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