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Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

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Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#91

Post by ImaCake »

daxfohl wrote: post #35

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this pote…

There is actually historical precedent for this. From "Rewilding the world" (a great book I highly recommend) we find this about the Terai region of Nepal:

>But in the mid-1950s, His Majesty’s Government of Nepal launched a massive mosquito-eradication program, and malaria) was vanquished. Subsequently, the population of the valleys tripled, with a flood of humanity moving down from the hills, where life was harder and agriculture poorer. The influx caused a rapid carving up of the entire Terai, from east to west, and turned it into the rice bowl of Nepal. Until the 1960s, the Terai was _ thickly populated with elephants, most of which were wiped out when the area was converted to agriculture, leaving a tiny remnant group in the west. Indeed, due to such habitat loss, the Asian species is far more endangered than the African, with only forty to fifty thousand left in the wild. Athough heavily logged and converted to agriculture, the Terai still contained forested pockets that held untold riches in endemic plants, bird species, and three of the most endangered large mammals on earth: Asian elephant, Bengal tiger, and the greater one-horned rhino. In addition, there were two perilously endangered freshwater species, the gharial crocodile and the Gangetic dolphin.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#92

Post by aprdm »

devoply wrote: post #83
rebuilder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally, and IMO the most important point: an assumption was made that the modified animals would not be able to reproduce. This turns out not to be the case, and therefore the genetic modifications made are now in the wild. In this case, as far as I can tell, there's little cause for alarm. But with a different alteration, things might be worse, and one wonders about the robustness of the decision making proc…

Did no one watch Jurassic Park? You can't put genetic alterations in the environment and expect them not to propagate. The idea that this is possible has been proven multiple times to be utterly and completely false. No matter what the level of care or control. You put it out there, and there is any possibility for it to proliferate... it will proliferate. Period. People don't learn they still think they are in contr…

Whoa loved this reference to Jurassic park, watched the movie for the 100th time yesterday, "life finds a way" I believe is the quote.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#93

Post by wetpaws »

anigbrowl wrote: post #88
wetpaws wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life by definition is a process of genetic modification

Truisms don't make for productive discussions. Picture yourself receiving a cancer diagnosis followed by your statement above.

How is cancer related to gmo? You know what is also bad? Traffic jam and rain. And flu. And clowns, I hate them.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#94

Post by corodra »

tomp wrote: post #89
corodra wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again, just like the others in the past who I argued with, you read nothing I put down. You saw hormone and knee jerked. The hormones in question are not found in other animals, and has been widely tested for a decade prior to field use in Florida. Working off my memory from diving into this a few years ago, the hormones are what regulate the dissolve rate of the shell pupa to adult stage. It's introduced at a se…

Thanks for this comment. Delighted to hear (what I assume is) an expert's opinion.

I'm absolutely NOT an expert. I'm a hobbyist-citizen-scientist-whatever-its-called trying to build out a better mosquito catcher that keeps them intact so they can be studied in a lab to count local species populations and hopefully disease rate. I'm trying to build an dirt cheap one that can easily be made by anyone in the world. Current issue is really the attractant to get the biggest "net" of species. Different species are attracted in different ways. CO2 producers are the main go to currently. I'm trying to find a better alternative.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#95

Post by corodra »

salawat wrote: post #79
corodra wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again, just like the others in the past who I argued with, you read nothing I put down. You saw hormone and knee jerked. The hormones in question are not found in other animals, and has been widely tested for a decade prior to field use in Florida. Working off my memory from diving into this a few years ago, the hormones are what regulate the dissolve rate of the shell pupa to adult stage. It's introduced at a se…

Hey. In the poster's defense, they stated specifically the downside of hormones was you had to treat every breeding location, which consists of every puddle or stagnant body of water, which includes the necessity of synthesizing and delivering the hormone to every candidate breeding ground. The idea behind the gene manipulation circumvented that logistical challenge since the males would do that job anyway. My major…

It's a touchy subject for me because I try working on it in my spare time.

My point is this, in Florida, there's a shitload of policy, gov action and procedure to keep mosquito populations at a minimum. It use to be spray trucks were a weekly thing when I was a kid in the summer (90s). It's not that way anymore. In most cases, mosquito populations are no where near as bad compared to when I was a kid. Mostly. It can still be bad if you go outside city limits. There's a long line of procedures that can be taught to other countries, which are cheap, that can already put a good dent in excessive mosquito population sizes. The hormones does another really big dent. Then there's the last resort spray trucks. The spray trucks come out when the commissioner acknowledges that failures in the chain have occurred. That's what I'm trying to get at. Different counties here consider a disease outbreak from mosquitoes at around 5-15 cases in a 2-5 mile radius within a week time span. The rest of the world does not have those numbers. They wait till the hundreds because they can't do anything. That's where we should start at before we look for miracle cures. And a lot of these are education and light field work that can be implemented cheaply. Either funded by local economies or aid. Which, we already do a fuckton of aid as it is. The one they really can't do is waterworks control which does play a major factor for us in FL. But there's still a lot that can be done before looking for unicorn farts. The disease transfer rate sort of works out like viral herd immunity (loosely). Because zika, malaria, dengue, etc, don't have a 100% incubation rate in the specific species of mosquito. However, there is a 100% transfer from mosquito to human (from what I know). But if you decrease mosquito populations around humans so the likelihood of incubation diminishes, you can see a good sized decrease in disease cases. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than what's going on now.

I just wish that spreading current, effective and efficient knowledge would be the one getting funding.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#96

Post by koboll »

maxerickson wrote: post #46
phkahler wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3) Two other species from different regions moved in during the population drop. Now they're I interbreeding which may lead to more robust variants.

The two other species are the species the released mosquitoes were hybridized from. They didn't move in, they were brought in as part of the experiment.

The lesson here is expect failure and don't do something stupid like introduce a nonnative mosquito species, even if you're sure they won't be able to breed. Because who knows, you could be wrong.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#97

Post by ianai »

Nasrudith wrote: post #80
yyyk wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do this again, but this time with a better selection of genes? The outcome isn't a refutation of the approach, only of the particular gene drive. No reason why we can't do better next time.

I think the main thing it pointed out was to locally source the specimens to avoid any accidental hybrid vigor if they managed to mutate out to something viable. Of course the outcome as is proves that males seem to make a poor long term solution since healthy ones can one to many enough to largely recover. It could theoretically weaken their genepool into nonviability if done persistently enough that the only mutant…

Self limiting is needed.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#98

Post by jschwartzi »

daddylonglegs wrote: post #77
daxfohl wrote: post #35

I keep hearing that mosquitoes are not ecologically important, and their extinction would have little to no ecological effect. However one indirect ecological consequence if something like this worked would be the migration of mammals to regions previously largely uninhabitable due to mosquitoes. Would such a migration and/or population increase have some ecological effect? I don't think anyone has explored this pote…

The claim I've heard is that any one (or a few) species of mosquito is not important. There are thousands of species of mosquito and plenty of other biting insects. A few species are responsible for almost all of the mosquito-borne transmission of deadly human diseases. Eliminating those species should hugely reduce malaria but have little to no impact on wildlife that feed on insects (and you would still get bitten…

Correct me off I'm wrong but wouldn't livestock grazing in previously uninhabitable regions have effects like reducing foliage and attendant erosion? This is the same reason the state parks where I live require you to stay on trail when the trail is maintained. The tens of thousands of people walking wherever have destroyed some hillsides by damaging foliage and causing erosion.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#99

Post by tomp »

wetpaws wrote: post #85
tomp wrote: post #84

How wrong am I to draw the conclusion from this, that people claiming that GMOs are "completely safe" (i.e. cannot have unexpected side effects, such as creation of super-species that completely crowds out other, non-GMO and now inferior, species in the specific niche, or the migration/expression of toxin-producing genes in unexpected places) are full of bullshit? That's my knee-jerk conclusion, I'd be really interes…

Life by definition is a process of genetic modification

ah, yeah the old "GMO is same mechanism as evolution" argument.

But unfortunately it's also completely wrong. Evolution is local optimization (walking around Australia in search for the highest mountain), whereas GMOs are global optimization (flying to the Himalayas).

For another counterexample, natural nuclear reactors exist (i.e. can happen "naturally", because chance), but we're still concerned about artificial (engineered) nuclear reactors, because they can have much worse consequences than what could happen just by chance.

Re: Genetically modified mosquitoes breed in Brazil

#100

Post by cwp »

devoply wrote: post #83
rebuilder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More generally, and IMO the most important point: an assumption was made that the modified animals would not be able to reproduce. This turns out not to be the case, and therefore the genetic modifications made are now in the wild. In this case, as far as I can tell, there's little cause for alarm. But with a different alteration, things might be worse, and one wonders about the robustness of the decision making proc…

Did no one watch Jurassic Park? You can't put genetic alterations in the environment and expect them not to propagate. The idea that this is possible has been proven multiple times to be utterly and completely false. No matter what the level of care or control. You put it out there, and there is any possibility for it to proliferate... it will proliferate. Period. People don't learn they still think they are in contr…

The only lessons to be learned from Jurassic Park are

a) Michael Crichton is a better writer than people think b) Wow, this CGI thing is going to be huge!

It's fiction. It did well because it tapped into the zeitgeist and gave form to people's fears. It is not evidence that those fears are justified.

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