A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
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This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
How do you define "wasp" though? All Hymenoptera? All Apocrita? All Apocrita minus Apoidea and/or Formicidae? All Vespoidea (minus Formicidae?)? Only Vespidae?
What about all the parasitic wasps? All fig trees would die and with them whole food webs. And if all the parasitic wasps that hold other organisms in check would die, this would also lead to a total disruption of so many biomes...
i am under the impression that mosquitos, as an invasive species, do not fill an important ecological niche and could go extinct and be replaced by other insects
I think that's true for the Aedes egypti species at least, they're not native in the Americas and are a main disease-spreading species
Invasive where? They can't be invasive in general
Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus are invasive in all of North and South America
They're invading my personal space
Many of the most common species of mosquitos in america are invasive
My back patio, the little shits
This has been a common sentiment but it hasn’t been proven in any substantial way to my knowledge. I personally doubt it’s accurate. That’s not to say the entire ecosystem would collapse but there would likely be consequences.
That said, the other commenter is correct that there are many introduced mosquito species that could probably be eradicated from their non-native range without major ecological harm. And the species that are the worst pests in human cities tend to be introduced, so eliminating them might significantly reduce the level of bites and disease transmission for people.
Mosquitos are a nuisance to every mammal, I think if we could talk to animals this is how it would go down
Human: "So anyways we've been mulling over making the mosquito extinct, but it might have some consequences for yo..."
Mammals: "WTF BRO YOU COULD HAVE DONE THAT THE ENTIRE TIME! WHY TF ARE YOU STILL HERE GET RID OF THOSE FUCKERS!"
TBF humans historically have been pretty lax in doing anything simply because it was a good thing to do
Ok but I still think the mosquito thing is worth a try. I’m even willing to live alongside wasps but mosquitoes gotta go!
The mosquito thing is known to be false, and people only ever talk about extinguishing half a dozen species of them at most, that are invasive on most parts.
Half a dozen out of 6k+ lmao
I’m willing to pump up other insects to get rid of mosquitoes
Can I be an insect?
..🥺
👉👈
::bonk::
We'll pump you full of larvae
I’m prepping my ovipositors as we speak
I call BS on at least some of those claims. Citation or GTFO
The mosquito one is absolutely BS, there's 6k+ species of mosquitoes but only like a couple bite humans
The bats and shit will be fine, it's time to eradicate mosquitoes!
The small section of mosquitoes that bite humans actually don't serve a critical niche like that, and just spread disease. Why the idea has been floated at sterilizing them.
How many species of birds and bats eat just mosquitoes though, or a high enough percentage that they would go extinct rather than shift to rely more on their other prey species, even if at a smaller population? And are those particular species of birds and bats worth the consequences of having mosquitoes?
Which would maybe force some other animals to change their behaviour slightly more, which in turn affects yet other species. And so the butterfly effect rolls on.
Or it doesn't and the system stabilises in another state. Who knows, can we actually know it with a high enough certainty or are the dependencies and behavioural guesses too complex?
I mean, has the system ever not eventually stabilized in another state? The fact that we have had extinctions, quite a lot of them even involving most species that have ever existed, and yet complex life and ecosystems still exist, would suggest that life will find a way to adapt around such a loss given time.
I would gladly feed the birds and bats to be rid of mosquitoes.
Only certain mosquitoes for me. There is a very rare a pretty blue one (Sabethes cyaneus) I would be happy to feed occasionally. But aedes aegypti can suck a fat dick and rest in piss.
How about we send all the aegypti to a certain big white house to suck a fatass tinydick? I hear he's into piss.
What would happen if bedbugs went extinct? Other than mass celebrations, I mean.
Nothing evolves to have a purpose, something just mutated by chance that happens to serve a beneficial function to the environment and other organisms
Also I'm pretty sure birds, bats and plants can eat other bugs
What's the statistics on bug food for birds and plants ?
Statistics on bug food????? For birds and plants??? Do you want the whole thing dumped here in the comments? Or do you mean "do birds eat insects"? Yes. A lot.
Diets are highly species specific, but mosquitos are generally less than 3% of the diet for most birds and bats. Too small, don't fly around at the correct time of day/night, and pretty agile, so they aren't supper important for most birds and bats.
Also, usually they hatch in the billions all at once and die within a few weeks so there's a very limited amount of time that they even can be preyed on as food. Their strategy (many of them, not all species) is to overwhelm any predators with numbers.
I thought some of the specific mosquitoes that prey on humans can be killed with little side effects. Or is that just my cognitive bias dreaming of a better world
Species do not exist for a purpose. They are important in their ecosystem, that's all.
And even if they don't have a role, that doesn't make their existence any less valuable.
That's usually the case, but it's just not true for mosquitos. Entomologist quoted in this Nature article:
"If we eradicated them tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life. Something better or worse would take over."
I can tolerate most pests, even cockroaches, but I draw the line at bedbugs. Don't care if they have any purpose, just fuck them