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giancarlostoro • today at 3:06 PM • 4 replies • view on HN

Famous last words... (Edit typo:) Till we find out when its too late that they had a genuine purpose in a very specific ecosystem after we've eradicated them?

Growing up my sister got dengue, so I hate mosquitoes, she was fine, I know dengue was no joke, but I always worry we make too many assumptions as humans, only to be proven wrong by nature somehow.


Replies

thaumaturgy • today at 3:19 PM

Do you have the same level of concern for all other recently-extinct species, widespread habitat loss, and overall large decline in insect biomass?

Or do you reserve most of your concern for just the few species of human disease-carrying mosquito?

Kind of a genuine question, because I've observed over the years people popping in to this topic to exclaim deep concern for the potential ecological impacts of intentionally extincting a couple of species -- that most biologists reportedly agree aren't keystone species. Meanwhile, species loss continues to occur globally for a variety of reasons and yet it's still really difficult to get the average person to care very much about that.

The psychology here is peculiar and I don't understand it.

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bryanlarsen • today at 3:09 PM

In that case, it would be a very niche/small ecosystem if we're don't know about it. OTOH, the benefits of eliminating malaria and dengue are massive to ecosystems we do know about.

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Wowfunhappy • today at 3:19 PM

How do you feel about getting rid of screwworm?

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VLM • today at 3:13 PM

All ecosystems are local, and local eradication has been a thing since the first shovel was invented, and nothing too bad has happened.

If there's an abandoned lot and you eradicate the mosquitoes by removing the water filled abandoned car tires, the existing ecosystem does pretty well. In a similar way you can willfully decide to make a livestock pond either a mosquito factory or mosquito free and mosquito free has not resulted in any problems.

Local eradication programs have successfully worked for centuries, at least. What makes this story interesting is its very wide ranging and likely very expensive.

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