Should We Kill All The Mosquitoes?
It’s that time of year again! Yes, the spring flowers are blooming, bringing us an array of yellows, purples, and pinks, and the spring sunshine makes being outdoors an incredibly pleasant experience. But the joys of warmer weather come with one downfall, mostly in the form that buzzes around your head and feasts on your blood. The roughly 110 trillion mosquitoes flying around our earth are comprised of over 3,000 individual species. And although not all species bite humans and only a handful carry pathogens responsible for diseases such as dengue fever, Zika, and malaria, mosquitoes are still incredibly annoying at best, and incredibly deadly creatures worldwide—accounting for over a million deaths per year, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa. Mosquitoes kill more people every year than any other animal (including humans), so shouldn’t we just get rid of them all?
Today in Nature Links, we debated this controversial issue—should we eradicate the mosquito? Students learned about mosquito anatomy, life cycle, reproduction, and what attracts them to some people but not others. We then learned about malaria transmission and efforts to reduce malaria worldwide, including insecticide-treated bed nets, vaccines, and genetic modification. With over 1 million worldwide deaths and over half impacting children under the age of 5, many public health experts and biologists argue that the pesky insect should be wiped off the face of the planet. But Nature Links students looked at the issue from all angles. Here are a few facts they found that support leaving mosquitoes alone:
There are around 3,500 mosquito species, but only around 100 will potentially bite and spread disease to humans
While mosquitoes are in their aquatic stage, they serve as a food source for fish and predatory insects. During this stage, mosquitoes also serve as filter feeders, turning over organic matter.
In their terrestrial stage, mosquitoes serve as food for birds, bats, salamanders, lizards, frogs and other animals. There are massive numbers of mosquitoes in Alaska and near the Arctic Circle, and it could potentially be dangerous to take away mosquitoes from that food chain
In the end, the majority of students argued that we should not, in fact, kill all mosquitoes, despite the harm they cause to humans. Here are some of their opinions:
“We should not get rid of mosquitoes because then other animals like frogs and things would not have a food source.”
“I'll stick to my gut and say no just leave them be. Mostly because I have this thought of it awakening something worse to take its place.”
“We should get rid of just the mosquitoes that carry malaria because they make lots of people sick.”
“We should learn more before such a drastic discussion. When there is a large loss or overabundance of anything, so much can change and what's right becomes more blurred.”
So where do you stand on this controversial issue? For now, I’ll keep using my natural bug spray and get myself outside to enjoy the spring.
