Would a world without mosquitoes really be all that great?

I recently stumbled across a relatively old (2010) Nature article discussing whether the eradication of the earth’s mosquitoes would actually be bad for the environment.

From a human perspective, by all means get rid of them. They're pretty annoying.

It's not their fault that they have to bite us, however. Nature gave female mosquitoes the gift of not being able to make enough protein to lay eggs on their own. Our blood has that protein. When looked at the issue from a more ecological standpoint, the eradication of all mosquitoes could have some incredibly negative consequences.

There are over 3,000 mosquito species in the world, and only a handful of these spread human diseases. Granted, these diseases, such as yellow fever, malaria, dengue, and encephalitis cause thousands of deaths each year and put a huge financial strain on developing countries. However, this doesn’t stop us from constantly trying to get rid of them. Granted, the mosquitoes that spread human diseases live around humans, so this is the only side we see of them.

Janet McAllister, a medical entomologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is quoted as saying “If there was a benefit to having them around, we would have found a way to exploit them. We haven’t wanted anything from mosquitoes except for them to go away.” I think the first phrase should be reworded to this: “If there was a benefit for humans to have mosquitoes around”. Just because there isn’t a benefit to humans does not mean that the ecosystem as a whole does not benefit from mosquitoes.

Many species of animals rely on mosquitoes as their sources of food, for example the mosquitofish (Gambusia affinis) almost entirely preys on mosquitoes. Many other species rely on insects for their food sources as well: other insects, reptiles, amphibians, spiders, even some birds and bats. While some of these species could potentially switch to eating a different insect without too much ill effect on their fitness, undoubtedly some would suffer.

Removing an entirety of species would have severe unintended consequences that would reverberate upward through the food chain. This picture gives a very basic outline of how complicated a food web could be. Mosquitoes feed on animals, transmit disease (keeping populations in check), and pollinate plants, and their larvae become food for many different species. Mosquitoes are both on the top and on the bottom at many points in the web.

What I’m curious to know is how the question of total mosquito eradication came up. Is it someone’s goal to accomplish this? Regardless it that is true, humans have been trying to control mosquito populations for a long time, and the mosquitoes repopulate incredibly quickly.

Eradicating the entire world's mosquito populations seems like not only an ethical problem but an impractical one as well.

Photo Credits: worldofbiology.wikispaces.com, www.examiner.com