Comment by peanutz454
3 years ago
Wow! Learned something new today. I've been misinformed into believe that mosquitoes are useless, and we should wipe them out.
3 years ago
Wow! Learned something new today. I've been misinformed into believe that mosquitoes are useless, and we should wipe them out.
They also move nutrients down the food chain. The larvae and the mosquitoes they produce feed lots of birds and other insects.
Up the foodchain, sorry for beeing a pedant.
Unless the parent was explicitly referring to the nutrients that they get from us, at the top.
From a mosquito's pov it might be down the foodchain.
as my vector algebra teacher always said... up, down, same thing.
They are useless and harmful, there are far better pollinators than mosquitos.
They are part of the ecosystem and are efficient pollinators. Without mosquito larvae, for example, aquatic animals such as tadpoles and such would have less to eat.
There are 3500 species of mosquito, of which only about 200 bite humans. If we eliminated biting mosquitos, tad poles and such will still have plenty of non-biting mosquito larvae to eat. And compared to bees and moths, mosquitos are not nearly as efficient pollinators. If all biting mosquito species suddenly vanished, the effect on ecosystems would be negligible, and it would stop them from killing a million people a year. The benefits would far, far outweigh the risks.
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There are certain species that are only pollinated by mosquitoes. Orchids for example.
Orchids are not only pollinated by mosquitos. While there are some orchids that have a single insect species pollinator, this is not the case with the orchid that mosquitos pollinate, the blunt-leaved orchid, which is also pollinated by other insects.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platanthera_obtusata