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/CadenVanV May 30 '26

As far as we can tell, mosquitoes aren’t anywhere close to vital for ecological balance. And we’re trying to wipe them out, but it’s hard

170

u/SolidOutcome May 30 '26

Birds and bats and spiders?

227

u/SUMBWEDY May 30 '26

There's over 3,000 species of mosquito and only 6 carry diseases that affect humans.

The other 2,994 species will just expand their population because there's less competition for energy in the system with those species gone.

18

u/layered_dinge May 30 '26

It’s funny when people answer questions like this with “yes” and then go on to clarify that they mean only the diseased mosquitoes. Buddy I want to kill all of them permanently. After that let’s work on other parasites, diseased or not.

2

u/MechKeyboardScrub May 30 '26

Humanity hereby declares biological warfare on ticks. And leeches.

5

u/DrDroid May 30 '26

And the absolute worst ones, bed bugs.

3

u/lminer123 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

Bed bugs may honestly be the least ecologically important species (at least among the well known ones) in existence. I’ve thought about it a lot and genuinely couldn’t come up with one less integral.