Elizabeth Weilot is an entomologist and an environmental ethics of the University of Arizona. I went to visit her and asked her a simple question: What is the benefit of mosquitoes?
Dr. Welot wrote an article about ecological reconstruction, name is "Reconstruction of nature, can you have mosquitoes?"
In this article, she noticed that in rebuilding the wetlands plan, people sometimes ignore a inevitable result of wetland reconstruction - more mosquitoes. Many wetlands in the past were discharged to build a hotel, a motive because people were afraid of diseases and deaths spread by mosquitoes.
The general principle of ecology tells us that from a species from the ecosystem, it will often lead to a chain reaction. So what is mosquito? When we remove mosquitoes, will everything really crash? Dr. Welot replied, no, no, the net of life is not so fragile, "When you cut off a ring, the net of life will not be a scatter."
In fact, she said that there is currently some ecological research show that the removal of a species will not have a big impact on the entire ecosystem. Various mosquitoes are closely related to humans. If the mosquitoes are extinct, there may be some interference to the ecosystem, but "may not lead to what big disaster".
So, after all, there are still some benefits, is it? That depends on how you look at it, doctoral said. A philosophical debate about the intrinsic value and the value of the instrument can become very complicated. Question: A mosquito, a tree, or any other life, from essentially, is there any value inherent in the human utilitarian purpose?
In the comfortable classroom with air conditioners, this discussion may be intriguing; however, if this problem is discussed in the dusk on the swamp. When our children may infect encephalitis, we will not hesitate to drive mosquitoes from the earth.
However, jump out of our centralism to think, mosquitoes have a certain role in maintaining the balance of the ecosystem. This value is not the inherent value of the species itself, because ecological balance is also beneficial to human beings, but we need to be self-centered when we look at this problem, and a possible value of mosquitoes may be controlling population. In history, mosquitoes have led to a reduction in population worldwide, and now there is still such a role in the third world mosquito. The problem is that they achieve this by propagating plague and death.
Mosquitoes also control the number of populations of other animals by disseminating diseases. There are also some creatures --- some fish, frogs, birds and bats, etc., with mosquitoes for food. If we extract mosquitoes, some related species may face the dilemma of food shortages, and other species may increase significantly because of the reduction of infectious diseases.
Another dispute value of mosquitoes may be effectively protected some wilderness zones by isolating "destructive human". A mining fly that enables human animal suffering from a dusk to make humans fear of certain wildlife shells, they don't dare to be close, which is called "Africa's best animal protection manager." Of course, this view is also described as "ecological imperialism."
Dr. Weilt said, in any case, in fact, "we don't plan to eliminate mosquitoes." Because we can't do only kill mosquitoes, don't hurt anything else. DDT is very effective for controlling mosquitoes, but it will cause catastrophic consequences to birds.
I asked Dr. Welot, giving us not to harm other lives, is she thinks that the extinction is not moral? She thinks this problem is an important proposition that needs serious treatment. "It is impossible to do with its effort, and when we know that it may bring serious side effects to a species, then more reasonable practices are to find another solution." In other words, don't do stupid things.
She suggested that we will take the midst of the mortar, and you will kill some mosquitoes.
At the end of the conversation, I said, although the reality is annoying around the mosquitoes around, but as the topic of talking and writing, mosquitoes are quite interesting, and we can't avoid it. "Yes," Dr. Welot replied, "they may just see us this way.
