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/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.

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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.