North Shore Without Mosquitoes
A world without mosquitoes is one that appeals to many.
Every year mosquitoes are the root of millions of medical and financial burdens. Mosquitoes, as vector insects, continually spread diseases like Malaria, Yellow Fever, Dengue Fever, Japanese Encephalitis, Chikungunya, and West Nile virus. Mosquito-borne illnesses take the lives of nearly a million people each.
Then there is the pest factor that they pose. As the mosquito population reaches it’s seasonal peak this year, people across the Northern Hemisphere are many of these nuisances main course.
So, if mosquitoes were to be wiped out, what would happen? What would the world be like without mosquitoes? Would anybody miss them? Currently, there are over 3,000 species of mosquito and only a few hundred feed on or bother people. Mosquitoes have been on Earth for more than a hundred millions years and inhabit almost every continent and habitat currently known. They have co-evolved alongside of many of Earth’s animals as well and do serve their own unique functions in many ecosystems. The loss of the mosquito could possibly leave a species of predators without prey. Or it could leave plants without a pollinator.
Conversely, the world is not going to end if mosquitoes were to go extinct. Many scientists believe that life would go on if such a reality is ever achieved. The ecological scar that would be left by the missing mosquito would quickly heal and the niche that mosquitoes currently occupy would ultimately be filled by other organisms sooner or later. There are few things that mosquitoes do that other organisms can’t do just as well or better. Other than collateral damage for their removal, a world without mosquitoes would be safer for all of humanity.
Ultimately, a true solution to this problem has still yet to be found. We still don’t know what would exactly happen should mosquitoes go extinct. At the end of the day many people vouch for the importance of mosquitoes within ecosystems worldwide, while others just wish they would just buzz off.