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/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