The 20% that survived are immune to this and will now multiply unchecked.
This is exactly what is going to happen.
Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
41–50 of 285 posts
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#42I have one question...can we do this with fire ants?
...and ticks
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#43I have one question...can we do this with fire ants?
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Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But if mosquitoes had some heretofore undiscovered critical purpose for the environment But what if mosquitoes are actually bad for the environment? By not removing them we can be screwing things up!
The 'environment' is often in balance. Any abrupt change can cause oscillations and crashes. May as well ask "By not removing this brick from the wall, I may be screwing the wall up!"
Why do you believe that?
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#45I have one question...can we do this with fire ants?
Ants actually serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Mosquitoes are unique in that many ecologists believe mosquito eradication would not adversely affect other species.
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#46How long did they measure this for, and how long is that relative to the lifecycle / reproductive cycle of a mosquito? Is there any reason to believe the mosquito population won't quickly (or if not quickly, then eventually) bounce back?
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
The 'environment' is often in balance. Any abrupt change can cause oscillations and crashes. May as well ask "By not removing this brick from the wall, I may be screwing the wall up!"
Technically, Lotka–Volterra tells us that almost no environment is in a stable equilibrium (balance).
Fine, meta-stable. :-)
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#48I’m not a zealot on the subject but I do believe some form of equally-distributed sterilization is the only way the human race can be saved from itself. That’s a very hard conversation I’d like to see broached.
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#49> In an international partnership between CSIRO, Verily and James Cook University, scientists used specialised technology to release millions of sterilised male Aedes aegypti mosquitoes This is so stupid. A population will recover from this in a single generation, because the second you stop releasing sterile males, the remaining males (no matter how few) can repopulate the species. If you want to make a species of m…
> This is so stupid. A population will recover from this in a single generation, because the second you stop releasing sterile males, the remaining males (no matter how few) can repopulate the species. Or perhaps it's prudent and by design. Mosquitos are part of a complex ecosystem that we barely understand. Irreversibly wiping out a _species_ without fully understanding the consequences is a drastic measure.
It's always bizarre to read these opinions. They seem to start from an unmentioned point of view where the rapid growth of humans has somehow never caused species to cease to exist and that today, right now is the most natural state of being and that the discussed actions threaten this perfect balance we've carefully built.
It's all revisionist nonsense. Take a look out the window at all the hulking tons of metal burning up dinosaurs to move faster than any land animal ever did. Complex ecosystem. It's the same phenomenon we get with opposition to GMO food found predominantly in faux educated circles. Heard about evolution in school, never really understood it.
Re: Trial wipes out over 80% of Australian disease-spreading mosquito
#50It is theorized there is no adverse effect from killing mosquito species. There is always a counter-effect. Typically it's unpredictable. Mosquitoes FACILITATE transmission of bad stuff. I believe that if bad stuff is not transmitted, species evolve more slowly against pathogens. Species will still be exposed, maybe generations later through a scratch or otherwise. At that point, having never evolved a strong immune system the same animals will be less prepared. It's not whether the American Indians were to die from European diseases, but when.