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FDA Wants To Release Millions of Genetically Modified Mosquitoes In Florida
MikeChino writes In an attempt to curb outbreaks of two devastating tropical diseases in the Florida Keys, the FDA is proposing the release of millions of genetically modified mosquitoes into the area. Scientists have bred male mosquitoes with virus gene fragments, so when they mate with the females that bite and spread illness, their offspring will die. This can reduce the mosquito population dramatically, halting the spread of diseases like dengue fever.
With the mosquitos gone, the WASPs will move in, causing gentrification in the area as the higher prices sting a lot worse.
Dibbs on opening the cage! I'll get to work practicing my mad scientist laugh! "Muahahahahaha! YES! GO FORTH AND FEED, MY CHILDREN!"
You should also practice your deflated-sounding "Oh", for when your assistant whispers in your ear that male mosquitoes feed on sap and nectar, not blood.
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You know what I hate?
Someone does something using physics, and that's great.
Someone does something using chemistry, and that's great.
Someone does something using biology, and everyone rushes to make the overused comment you just made and act as if they have, just by sitting on their couch and speculating, discovered the terrible flaw with the idea that those arrogant scientists who spent years in their field never thought of.
Something is wrong here.
Will this genetic variation die out in a localized manner, or will it spread globally and wipe out every mosquito?
Yes, it will die out, it's guaranteed. The technique works by releasing a large number of sterile males which overwhelm the breeding population for one cycle, resulting in a massively smaller next generation. Those males die and by definition they have no offspring. Plus it's already been used internationally without such issues - TFA even mentions this:
In experiments conducted by Oxitec in Brazil and the Cayman Islands, millions of modified mosquitoes were released over a period of several months, and they ended up decimating over 95 percent of the targeted insect population. Both countries were so impressed by this result that they’re now hoping for larger-scale operations.
.: Semper Absurda
In experiments conducted by Oxitec in Brazil and the Cayman Islands, millions of modified mosquitoes were released over a period of several months, and they ended up decimating over 95 percent of the targeted insect population. Both countries were so impressed by this result that they’re now hoping for larger-scale operations.
.: Semper Absurda
How so? Food source... pollinator... is there an unknown benefit of having a blood-borne disease vector?
There are many different species of mosquitoes. Only some of them are disease vectors. The Anopheles mosquito, which carries malaria, used to be common in Southern Europe and parts of America. When they were exterminated, they were displaced by less harmful species, with no known detrimental effect (other than allowing human populations to grow).
Nearly all surviving balances in nature are stable equilibria. They're not fragile at all. If you perturb them, it just re-stabilizes at a new equilibrium point. e.g. If you tilt the bowl in the wiki picture, the ball doesn't fall off the top of the bowl like in the first picture or roll away like in the third picture.. It just settles in at a different spot on the bottom of the bowl in the second picture, now-tilted slightly.
Bullshit.
That's a myth dreamt up by people more concerned with mathematics and engineering to pay attention to how organic systems actually function.
Let us put aside for the moment that this reasoning applies to highly simplified models of ecosystems, and not ecosystems themselves. This adds a whole epistemic layer to the problem: we don't really know shit about what would actually happen given a perturbation; we barely know this for many models and for actual ecosystems you can forget about it.
But then - even model ecosystems are seldom if ever in equilibrium, and the classical stability-based equilibrium analysis may have been cutting edge in 1974 when Robert May published his seminal book, but plenty of problems with this approach have been found since then. There are a plethora of other concepts that have been developed in order to tackle its short comings, for example resilience (how quickly the system returns to equilibrium). All these concepts should always be taken with a pinch of salt; its not obvious they are relevant or even desirable goals in ecosystem management.
To speak of one particularly relevant metric to this particular issue, there are huge parameter ranges in many models in which oscillatory behavior is present. In his 2012 book, Kevin McCann argues we should focus more on whether the eigenvalues are complex (i.e. prone to decaying or sustained oscillations) than on whether their real parts are negative (the classical stability criterion). If dynamics are oscillatory and I perturb a population down, it will overshoot its original value (possibly perturbing other populations) and will also return back down (making the population spend more time in low numbers and increasing extinction risk).
Another critical concept is that of fragility proper; as opposed to the dynamical concepts, fragility is a measure of functional response to the perturbation as opposed to the dynamics of the perturbation. Just because there is a stable equilibrium for some variable doesn't mean perturbing will have no cost in terms of other critical variables. For this see Nassim Taleb's 2012 book Antifragile.
Importantly I would point out the complete disconnect between your statements and empirical observations of ecosystems. We have many studies suggesting that empirically measured ecosystems may be extremely fragile to particular types of perturbations; for example see Solé & Montoya 2001 which identify keystone species by food web degree (number of tropic neighbors) and demonstrate fragility of total biodiversity to extinction of such keystone species. Another example is Montoya et al 2009 where a different identification of the weak spot based on inverse Jacobian / indirect interaction analysis is found. There is also work by Jane Memmott and her colleagues in identifying fragility not only particular species extinctions but also particular habitat loss. One doesn't need sophisticated analysis, however, to see ecosystems collapsing at a rapid rate not only at present but in many historical situations; indeed ecological fragility is quite possible one of the drivers of mass extinctions (present and past).
Finally, I would add that I would be the first to point out the short comings of all of these methods. The burden of proof, however, is on those engaging on sys
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