we all hate them, we all wish they would just disappear, some of us may believe that they were created by the devil. But could they actually be the key to our survival?
Before we answer this let us think about what these tiny blood sucking monsters do. Negatives: they spread deadly diseases around affecting 247 million people, killing around one million each year. When they bite they leave irritating marks on ours bodies that itch and sometimes sting. OK so now that we've gone through the obvious lets think about the positives. POSITIVES? really? Yes, did you know that mosquitoes and no-see-ums are key pollinators for our plants? No-see-ums (ceratopogonids) actually are key pollinators for the Cacao plants, a wold without these tiny bitting irritating beast would result in a world without chocolate!!! Mosquitoes are also a primary food source for most fish, which are primary food sources for most animals including humans. So let us think about this for a sec. Mosquitoes equals pollinated plants, which equals a healthy balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide, humans take in oxygen and give back carbon dioxide to the earth and the atmosphere, carbon dioxide traps the suns heat which is known as the greenhouse effect. Since carbon is balanced with the plants and us and the suns heat, some of the heat escapes from the carbon layer which results in a balance temperature, so we humans and animals don't freeze. OK taking a step backwards, pollinated plants means a balance between the plants, herbivores such as deer eats the plants, we are omnivores which means we eat both plants and the deer, and the meat eaters such as bears and lions eat the deer and the fish. What I'm getting at is without the mosquitoes pollinating our plants our plants could die which basically kills us all. Get it now? Mosquitoes+plants+deer,cows,bears,fish,lions,and many others all equals OUR SURVIVAL! So like Aldo pointed out in the essay Thinking like a mountain, it is important to view the entire system, not just the benefit to man,, or to one species. Everything in our ecosystem has a purpose without it we are all screwed!
