They kill mosquites with FRICKIN LASER BEAMSº

on micro level the removal of the mosquito wouldn't likely do that much, as far as I know, I'm not an ecologist. A few species have them as a vitally important food source however, so areas where the two overlapped would have issues. But if we're talking about killing off something prevalent on nearly every landmass on the planet and expecting there to be no ramifications then that's just silly. they'd probably even be unnoticeable to anyone who wasn't just so happening to be keeping data on the species effected. However I still think eventually there'd be a big difference, in the sense that it'd be a noticeable one, if not actually world shaking.

I can see where you're going, and what it'd do, for one malaria would likely be a thing of the past, more or less. but I'm not certain that eradicating the carrier from the face of the planet is the best answer, or the most feasible one.

edited 20th Oct '10 8:48:00 PM by Lanceleoghauni

why do you keep saying that I'm trying to say that the human race is OMGDOOMED. I'm not, I'm saying we have no idea what will happen.

"Oh Fuck, The Food Web Just Imploded"

:|

The logic I heard when I raised the question is that these are places where mosquito extermination programs are already going on. They're already spraying insecticides and that sort of thing, stuff that kills a lot more than just female mosquitoes.

It was more hyperbole than an actual attempt at a discussion point.

That'd be like, killing plankton or something. Killing off plankton wouuld literally kill of a ton of things.

just goes to show you shouldn't post in complex issues threads while semitired and distracted. Overstatement causes bad things to happen to arguments.

edited 20th Oct '10 9:51:33 PM by Lanceleoghauni

Many animals depend upon plankton as a food source. No animal depends (solely) on mosquito as a food source.

Try again.

no, that's what I was saying. I was saying that the "Food web imploding" I'd semijokingly mentioned would be something like plankton dying, not mosquitoes.

I'm thinking I should reread all of my posts and tweak grammar to make them more clear.

edited 20th Oct '10 9:53:01 PM by Lanceleoghauni

There are plenty of other bugs that can replace the mosquito.

No there aren't. They're an important disease vector.

Here's a possible scenario to illustrate the problems you could be dealing with.

Loss of mosquitoes causes severe drop in rates of disease in prey species

Drop in rates of disease in prey species prevents culling by predators. Several predator species go extinct due to insufficient food source.

Lack of predation leads to fluctuations in predator species populations. Temporary population high and altered behavior from lack of predation leads to irrecoverable damage to flora populations (for an example of this kind of phenomenon, when wolves inhabit an an area, deer will browse plants but leave the roots. When no wolves are present, the deer will dig up and eat the roots, preventing the plant from growing back.)

Lack of plants involved in their reproductive cycle drives another insect species to extinction.

Lack of the insect they prey on leads another insect species to extinction

And another.

Insect populations are thrown completely out of whack, affecting everything which interacts with them, which is a whole lot of things.

Major extinction event. Many species beneficial to humans lost.

Is it likely that exactly that chain of events would occur? No, although the first is near certain and the second is far from improbable. But there are far too many ways in which it might screw us over to hope to account for all of them.

Thank you desertopa, I seem incapable of being coherent tonight.

I don't think this particularly matters as it would be fairly expensive to fly around with one of these lasers and zap all of them. Then again, it might be possible to use low power lasers. Even then it would likely be too expensive to deploy them en mass. Might think of using a laser truck to roam around cities after it rains though.

hehehe. I can see it, they'll call it the ravemobile.

Desertopa, I fully agree with you. I like the idea however, if the extermination using lasers (if there ever going to be one) is carried out in areas where using chemical for extermination is taking place. It will be more specific, and in residential areas, less annoying to the residents.

Depends on the class of laser needed. There's a few low grade lasers that you could likely use, but cost and ability to deploy them on a truck, and when you could drive them around, might have cost problems.

Also I don't think anyone's trying to actually exterminate mosquitoes—the idea is more to cut down their population in areas where malaria is a major problem.

I was originally responding to the statement of the scientist in the article, that there was no danger in exterminating mosquitoes on a grand scale, that they are ecologically unimportant, and nobody would miss them. If the devices are confined to major zone of human habitation, "No mosquito gets into the village or city," that would probably not pose a serious ecological danger (or at least, I don't see how it could.) If they expand it to anywhere humans are likely to go, "No mosquito gets within miles of any city, village, town, farm, recreational destination, or route of transit," that could be dangerous.

I don't see how mosquitoes could be detected by sound alone in our noisy environments. However, it might be a more efficient room scale tool... insofar as "burning the mosquitoes" doesn't mean "burning what uis both behind and in front of them". Which, now that I think of it, would cause those lasers to be unusable in highly flammable environments such as tropical forests or the Savannah.

You don't need to set it on fire to cook it alive.

^Yeah, it takes a lot of direct flame-less heat energy to set something on fire. Look at magnifying glasses for instance-you can fry a mosquito (or an ant, they're easier to hit and similar) with one of those much easier than you can use it to light a piece of paper (seriously, starting fires is hard, a lot more so than the average person thinks.)

But beyond that, they said they sucessfully tested it so it probably isn't a concern...I doubt they'd be getting published if their lab was pocked with scorch marks.

Intersting use of lasers. I could see this as way to protect things like hospitals and labs from flying pests.

Two things for you commando.

1. . The lasers we have can't cut through a Main Battle Tank. They rely on igniting and detonating fuel or warheads in the missile body. On a tank these are buried under many layers of armor. Even the engine exhaust ports are protected. They are of limited use in ABM units in that they are only truly effective as a close in defense mechanism. They recently failed their distance test.

2. . Mosquitoes are far from useless. Only the female of the species feeds on blood. The male mosquitoes are pollinators. You knock off a pollinator you have dramatic consequences to plant population which creates a nasty chain effect. Edit. Both males and females drink nectar and can be part of a pollination scheme. The females only drink blood when they are going to lay eggs.

edited 21st Oct '10 6:42:50 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I'd settle if the laser just fatally injured those mosquitoes as they fell dying. There is no need to zap them to nothingness.