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Australian Experiment Wipes Out Over 80% of Disease-Carrying Mosquitoes (cnn.com)
schwit1 quotes CNN: In an experiment with global implications, Australian scientists have successfully wiped out more than 80% of disease-carrying mosquitoes in trial locations across north Queensland.
The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika. In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
The experiment, conducted by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization and James Cook University (JCU), targeted Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which spread deadly diseases such as dengue fever and Zika. In JCU laboratories, researchers bred almost 20 million mosquitoes, infecting males with bacteria that made them sterile. Then, last summer, they released over three million of them in three towns on the Cassowary Coast.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
The sterile male mosquitoes didn't bite or spread disease, but when they mated with wild females, the resulting eggs didn't hatch, and the population crashed.
A secret organization I cannot name is trying the same thing right now, in western countries we're releasing a bunch of liberal males into the populace - They just yell a lot and while not sterile, are so unpleasant they make breeding pretty much impossible so the result is the same - population crashing.
It's working far better than we had hoped!
So this year the population is down 80%, the next year it'll be down another 60%... but the following year 100% of the mosquito population will be immune, and there will be 10000% more of them because the bird population decreased 80% from starvation. To challenge nature on it's own terms is generally futile in the long run.
Australian Scientists Baffled As Small Bird Populations Crash; Climate Change Blamed.
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If you read the article (I know, this is Slashdot) then you'd know that this species of mosquito is invasive. It's native to Africa and wiping them out in Australia would bring the native ecosystem back. This isn't extinction, the species still exists in Africa.
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Sorry this is memory without citation, but I recall reading some news a few years ago that mosquitoes are not the sole or primary food source for anything. All mosquito-eaters are generalized insectivores which have many alternate food sources.
The discussion was specifically about the ecological consequences of a hypothetical extinction of mosquitoes, and the conclusion that nothing particularly bad would happen if the family Culicidae were exterminated.
That said, I agree that 80% will only get worse, as females learn to avoid the sterile males, or mate multiple times, or whatever it takes to be among the 20%.
The term "wild females" is sexist and paints an unfavourable image of Australian women. I demand this study be thrown out, all paper copies destroyed, all backups erased and all the scientists who worked on it should lose their jobs. This is unacceptable behaviour in the #MeToo age.
>Jan 20, 2019
GREAT SCOTT!! Marty, we have to go back!
but I'm kinda bummed they used a biological method instead of the laser cannon that was discussed here a few years ago
Everything wants to kill you in Australia. It just wants to fit it.
This has been practiced by vector control authorities for decades in the U.S.
When it's out of the news for so long, a repeat of the past becomes novel for a new generation.
Mosquitoes are NOT essential food items for any known species, especially not a recently introduced variety. At the moment introduced pest in Australia are decimating native species, but you think it more important to save an introduced one just in case something in the last 20 years has become dependent on it.
What eats the mosquitoes? Because whatever it is, you just wiped out a major food source for them.
Whilst it might be a promising contribution to global health (Hey, I'm an Australian), it's the other 20% we need to worry about. One step forwards, two steps back.
Hey how come we are not hearing any protests from animal rights people from Florida? This happens to be their state bird,you know.Just sayin
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That really went down well. Thanks for the counter-arguments!
The sterile insect technique has been used since the 1950s. In Florida, in my living memory, it eliminated the dreadful screwworm (the males were sterilized by X-radiation), and even stopped a re-infestation in the Florida Keys in 2016.
There is nothing new about this technique, except perhaps the method by which the males were made sterile. If you're concerned about ecological implications, the technique has a 60-year history covering many insects around the world for you to study.
Before you dismiss the technique out of hand, however, I suggest that you spend time with patients (quite literally) suffering from Dengue, with mothers having given birth to babies with Microcephaly due to Zika, or those owning dogs, cats, or farm animals agonizing from screwworm infections, and get their viewpoint.
the technique had been used multiple times before, starting decades ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But they haven't been wiped out yet, Australia is working hard to prevent that from happening, though between Cane toads, carp, mosquitos, foxes, rabbits, cats, pigs, camels, dogs, goats etc we have many species bordering on extinction unless research like this is successful very very soon. This is also only a sub species. it doesn't remove mosquitos from the environment just the particular disease carrying sub species.
do you want killer mosquitos? because this is how you get killer mosquitos...
What could go wrong?