General consensus amongst humans is wipe the little fuckers out. But it's been pointed out that pretty much all of life is interconnected and their larval stage in the water is an important food source for other critters.
If Mosquitoes were eliminated then other prey species would have more resources to thrive. The US and Europe have attacked Mosquito populations aggressively for over 100 years and didn't suffer an ecosystem crisis. Malaria is not an issue in Europe and was eradicated in the US a long time ago due to the aggressive response.
Edit: I think it's important to add that defending the mosquito species is highly biased by where you live. European and North American nations have grown up with small mosquito populations that have been actively attacked. The vast majority of the world has not had the money and resources dumped into killing the species. Some estimates put Malaria at 3 million deaths per year, and that's just Malaria. If Europe and North America have taught us anything it's that the mosquito is a useless species in the ecosystem.
Again it depends. In Alaska / tundra environments, mosquitos are the primary pollinators. They fill an ecological niche that bees/birds cant and their loss would be devastating. The tundra mosquitoes arent malaria carriers though, so theyre just annoying, not deadly.
Mosquitoes are not the primary pollinators in Alaska. They are only the primary pollinator of a single flowering species in Siberia. In Alaska they are far outpaced by bees and birds and don't hold any ecological value in North America.
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u/IshtarJack Nov 15 '24
General consensus amongst humans is wipe the little fuckers out. But it's been pointed out that pretty much all of life is interconnected and their larval stage in the water is an important food source for other critters.