Why have we not been able to eradicate mosquitoes completely?
In: Biology
There are a number of reasons, but the main ones being that they are extremely widespread and that there are something like 3000 different species of mosquitoes. Wiping out that many different species spread out over so much of the world’s surface is no small job.
There is also the environmental impact. Any pesticide that could wipe out a species of mosquito is bound to have other negative effects, and that’s generally something we want to avoid. Furthermore, we have no idea how it would affect the local ecosystems to simply remove a species. Scientists are actually very concerned about what could happen if we do that.
But there is hope. A year or two ago scientists were able to genetically modify a couple different mosquito species in such a way that it makes them incapable of reproducing. They were planning to introduce them into a couple of isolated areas to test it out and see what happens as a result. Depending on how that works out, they believe they can actually effectively eradicate malaria-bearing species of mosquitoes within ten years.
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