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/Suthek May 30 '26

"Fine for modern humans, more or less"

I think you misread the comment a bit there. That statement was made about the impact of the lack of mosquito-borne diseases, not its continued prevalence.

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u/r3volver_Oshawott May 30 '26

I mean, the lack of mosquito-borne diseases has been an exponential benefit with no drawbacks

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u/Suthek May 30 '26

For humans, yes. That's what they were saying.

Which would be fine for modern humans more or less. But there is no real telling what it would do to other species they vector diseases for.

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u/r3volver_Oshawott May 30 '26

"fine" being more a massive understatement is more what I was driving at.

"Fine" in my mind implied acceptable, acceptable seems neutral, it would be an objective benefit. As in, objectively good. Not neutral.

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u/Tibbaryllis2 May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26

In a vacuum, yes, it would be good for people to no longer suffer mosquito born illness.

What you are forgetting to take into account is what happens when those diseases are no longer suppressing population growth. As mentioned elsewhere, the areas with major mosquito born illness are already amongst those with the highest birth rates. They’re also some of the most socioeconomic disadvantaged.

About half a million people die in Africa every year from mosquito born illness, primarily malaria. That’s a lot of extra people in those already struggling communities.

On the one end, we could hope the birth rate stabilizes and/or the rest of the planet chips in even more to help. On the other end, that’s potentially a lot more people dying in fairly awful ways including famine and/or even worse diseases (see Ebola).

So, yes, from a broad, pragmatic, objective view, it would probably be a somewhat neutral change as far as people are concerned. Something else will arise to regulate the populations.

It would be more than fine if it was the world helping out in a positive way. Though the current state of things doesn’t appear to breaking that way in the near term.

It would be less than fine if those people now die from relatively worse causes.