Burkina Faso says no to Bill Gates’ plan of creating modified species of mosquitoes

[u/lurker_bee]

https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/lifestyle/burkina-faso-says-no-to-bill-gates-plan-of-creating-modified-species-of-mosquitoes/xyk7xm8

[u/Abedeus]

Are the mosquitos even that much of a "food source" for predators? Last I checked they don't make up that much biomass that their extinction would be noticeable.

[u/spookymulderfbi → u/Abedeus]

I'm definitely not an expert but from the articles I've read, I thought that was one of the main reasons that bioengineering less infectious or non infectious replacements was safer than outright elimination. E.g. even if it was 5% of an animal's food source, eliminating it without ensuring there is another source to replace that 5% could cause incremental changes in the food web etc. and we can't reliably predict the outcomes all the way up and down the food chain.

As a layman, that does seem to make more logical sense to me, but I wouldn't be surprised if I'm missing something.

[u/Serplantprotector → u/Abedeus]

Mosquitoes are actually an important pollinator insect for swamps and wetland areas where there are fewer other pollinator species. It's only a short period of time where the females seek out blood needed for fertilisation.

[u/ParaponeraBread → u/Abedeus]

How many times have we removed something from a food web and had it go well? Besides, there are way more mosquito species than there are species that carry disease.

It’s never just a biomass calculation. Certain birds eat a lot of mosquitoes, bats eat a lot of mosquitoes. Fish eat a ton of mosquito larvae. You’d potentially be fumbling the bag for a bunch of other species and those knock on effects are extremely hard to predict.

It’s so much better and less risky to modify the disease out of the ones that we have than to fuck with the whole ecology of a region.

[u/petit_cochon → u/Abedeus]

Mosquitoes are a huge food source for insectivores, which are themselves a huge food source for larger predators.

[u/Evening_Echidna_7493 → u/Abedeus]

They thrive around urban and suburban areas, unlike a lot of insects. Their larvae are important food for aquatic species and water filter feeders, and the adults are pollinators and food for thousands of species. They’re a very important food source in a time where insect populations are plummeting rapidly. IMO, it would be better to target and eliminate the diseases they spread (which is possible, at least for some of the diseases) rather than the mosquito.