Larry Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 10 hours ago, skinsfan_1215 said: Here's a question to consider.... Is eradicating a small disease bearing insect fundamentally different than using technology (vaccinations) to eradicate smallpox, polio, etc? Observing that I THINK there is a notable distinction between wiping out an organism, and making human hosts resistant to it. I'm pretty sure that there is. 5 hours ago, BornaSkinsFan83 said: Poison ivy and ticks are proof that there is no God. Recall a line from the series Reba:. God has an excellent sense of humor. Look at ostriches. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 4 hours ago, No Excuses said: We likely won't undertake measures to wipe them out worldwide. But I hope the referendum in Florida Keys passes. Small scale experimentation will tell us enough of the ecological impacts to see if it's worthwhile on a large scale. Will it? (Tell us the results?). For one thing, we're discussing suppressing a species in one, tiny, area, that isn't even isolated from surrounding areas. For another, my suspicion is that the ramifications of wiping out a species may very well not show up for centuries. (And may be far from obvious). 2 hours ago, No Excuses said: You keep saying this and there is simply no evidence that it is true for mosquitos. And there is no uniform principle in Biology that human-driven extinction of species in general is "a very bad idea". And for the species for which it is a bad idea, there are efforts in place to protect them. Pointing out that you just made a case for why we shouldn't pay attention to endangered species. I mean, if there's no evidence whatsoever that wiping out an entire species is bad, or anything, . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 12 minutes ago, Larry said: Pointing out that you just made a case for why we shouldn't pay attention to endangered species. I mean, if there's no evidence whatsoever that wiping out an entire species is bad, or anything, . . . I suppose on surface it could be used as an argument against conserving endangered species if their removal poses little to no risk at destabilizing ecosystems. Your reasons for preserving, or not preserving such species are likely to be driven by social reasons that are agnostic to human well-being. That's clearly not the case for mosquitos. 18 minutes ago, Larry said: Will it? (Tell us the results?). For another, my suspicion is that the ramifications of wiping out a species may very well not show up for centuries. (And may be far from obvious). It should give us a decent amount of data on how effective such strategies really are. For what it's worth this already undergoing testing in Brazil. In terms of ramifications, with small invertebrates, especially insects that reproduce really fast, you can track changes fairly quickly. Whatever replaces them will fill their niche pretty rapidly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Just to make sure we're on the same page here @No Excuses, are you talking about eradicating all mosquitoes, or just the ones that bite people and spread diseases between other human beings? Those are two very different stances, imho. And you're right, that they are already doing this in Brazil to help fight Zika. We're talking about "should we be systematicly wiping out species of mosquitoes that carry certain diseases", but the reality is we're already starting to do that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuckinIA Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 I am a trained microbiologist and currently working with mosquitoes. There is no consensus on the eradication of mosquito species among the mosquito research and control community. It should also be noted that the New England Journal of Medicine just published an article attributing microcephaly to Brazil's extension use of pesticides. I originally thought this was conspiracy theorist bull****, but it appears to now have support among the medical field. So, maybe before we just start wiping out species with no concern for long term ramifications, it might be time to take a step back and make sure the arbovirus dujour actually causes the disease we assume it does. Actually funding vector biology would be a nice start. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vilandil Tasardur Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Quote Understanding how ecological communities are organized and how they change through time is critical to predicting the effects of climate change1. Recent work documenting the co-occurrence structure of modern communities found that most significant species pairs co-occur less frequently than would be expected by chance2, 3. However, little is known about how co-occurrence structure changes through time. Here we evaluate changes in plant and animal community organization over geological time by quantifying the co-occurrence structure of 359,896 unique taxon pairs in 80 assemblages spanning the past 300 million years. Co-occurrences of most taxon pairs were statistically random, but a significant fraction were spatially aggregated or segregated. Aggregated pairs dominated from the Carboniferous period (307 million years ago) to the early Holocene epoch (11,700 years before present), when there was a pronounced shift to more segregated pairs, a trend that continues in modern assemblages. The shift began during the Holocene and coincided with increasing human population size4, 5 and the spread of agriculture in North America6, 7. Before the shift, an average of 64% of significant pairs were aggregated; after the shift, the average dropped to 37%. The organization of modern and late Holocene plant and animal assemblages differs fundamentally from that of assemblages over the past 300 million years that predate the large-scale impacts of humans. Our results suggest that the rules governing the assembly of communities have recently been changed by human activity. Holocene shifts in the assembly of plant and animal communities implicate human impacts http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v529/n7584/abs/nature16447.html Quote Comparing the magnitude of the current biodiversity crisis with those in the fossil record is difficult without an understanding of differential preservation. Integrating data from palaeontological databases with information on IUCN status, ecology and life history characteristics of contemporary mammals, we demonstrate that only a small and biased fraction of threatened species (< 9%) have a fossil record, compared with 20% of non-threatened species. We find strong taphonomic biases related to body size and geographic range. Modern species with a fossil record tend to be large and widespread and were described in the 19th century. The expected magnitude of the current extinction based only on species with a fossil record is about half of that of one based on all modern species; values for genera are similar. The record of ancient extinctions may be similarly biased, with many species having originated and gone extinct without leaving a tangible record. The fossil record of the sixth extinction http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.12589/abstract Here are a few papers by colleagues of mine that study the effects of human driven extinctions. Now, it's only fair to admit, that climate how not been constant this entire time, but in the same vein, nor is it constant now. There are a LOT of factors that are not nearly as simple to model as you claim. And I'm afraid it's not as simple as you make it out when you say endangered species are typically such that people are agnostic about. Many species of whale, wolves in the midwest, just about every species living in the rain forest, etc. These are all organisms where people have a real, vested (commercial) interest in allowing them to be destroyed. In many cases, entire lobby organizations are constructed to convince people they are not worth saving. Now, I'll be the first to tell you that I think the way in which we go about "saving" species is backwards, but you won't hear me argue that it isn't worth it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Renegade7 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 I can sense this slipping away partly due to trying to dispell the severity of Zika because its the latest one the media seems to be talking about. Putting the following in Google gets some interesting results: "zika not cause microcephaly" I'd say just as much research needs to be done into what this really is and does to people, and hoping this conversation doesn't lose track of the other diseases that are killing people that eradicating human-biting mosquitoes would help with. Like has been mentioned earlier, this is happening whether we like it or not, just waiting to see what scale its going to grow to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 1 minute ago, Renegade7 said: Just to make sure we're on the same page here @No Excuses, are you talking about eradicating all mosquitoes, or just the ones that bite people and spread diseases between other human beings. Those are two very different stances, imho. I lean in favor of eradicating dangerous species that are in human populated regions. I don't see much of a point in eradicating them in the arctic tundra for instance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuckinIA Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 31 minutes ago, Renegade7 said: Just to make sure we're on the same page here @No Excuses, are you talking about eradicating all mosquitoes, or just the ones that bite people and spread diseases between other human beings? Those are two very different stances, imho. And you're right, that they are already doing this in Brazil to help fight Zika. We're talking about "should we be systematicly wiping out species of mosquitoes that carry certain diseases", but the reality is we're already starting to do that. The problem with wiping out only the "disease-spreading" species, is that is going to increase selective pressure on other mosquito species. In the case of chikungunya virus, the La Reunion strain of the virus was able to jump from Aedes aegypti to Aedes albopictus mosquitoes due to a single amino acid (single base pair, in fact) change in a surface glycoprotein. Viruses evolve easily; eliminating targeted species may not have the affect on the spread of disease that we are hoping for. A gung-ho scorched earth policy might not be the best option. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 44 minutes ago, StuckinIA said: I am a trained microbiologist and currently working with mosquitoes. There is no consensus on the eradication of mosquito species among the mosquito research and control community. It should also be noted that the New England Journal of Medicine just published an article attributing microcephaly to Brazil's extension use of pesticides. I originally thought this was conspiracy theorist bull****, but it appears to now have support among the medical field. So, maybe before we just start wiping out species with no concern for long term ramifications, it might be time to take a step back and make sure the arbovirus dujour actually causes the disease we assume it does. Actually funding vector biology would be a nice start. Can you link the New England journal study? My recollection is that study they published showed no correlation in microcephaly and Zika in Columbian pregnant women. But it made no claims on a pesticide, which is an unverified theory promoted by an Argentinian special interest group. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xameil Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 15 minutes ago, No Excuses said: I lean in favor of eradicating dangerous species that are in human populated regions. Bye bye great white shark... Bye bye alligators Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
No Excuses Posted September 17, 2016 Author Share Posted September 17, 2016 5 minutes ago, Xameil said: Bye bye great white shark... Bye bye alligators Do you realize that there are bioethicists and we are bound by laws, regulations and ethics commmittees? Entire species won't be eradicated for ****s and giggles. But if they are hosts to a plethora of disease causing pathogens then yes, we will need to have a debate on extermination. We've been doing this in a much cruder way for quite some time. And no, biologists then didn't go after the great white shark. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGreatBuzz Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Is there a point where we stop trying to prove Darwin wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xameil Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 24 minutes ago, No Excuses said: Do you realize that there are bioethicists and we are bound by laws, regulations and ethics commmittees? Entire species won't be eradicated for ****s and giggles. But if they are hosts to a plethora of disease causing pathogens then yes, we will need to have a debate on extermination. We've been doing this in a much cruder way for quite some time. And no, biologists then didn't go after the great white shark. Note the part I quoted. In that does it specify what you are saying? No...it doesn't. As I said...it's a slippery slope. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuckinIA Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 26 minutes ago, No Excuses said: Can you link the New England journal study? My recollection is that study they published showed no correlation in microcephaly and Zika in Columbian pregnant women. But it made no claims on a pesticide, which is an unverified theory promoted by an Argentinian special interest group. The pesticide claim appears to be a spin off of some horse **** group. I apologize for making that claim as I was quickly skimming articles. (The actually makes me feel better because I cannot stand conspiracy garbage.) I do feel that the NEJM article still supports restraint in the fact that we do not know enough about this virus to make snap judgements. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twa Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuckinIA Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 DDT works. The horrible side effects of DDT aside, current pesticide treatments have actually had greater effect on honey bees than mosquitoes. A colleague's Journal of Medical Entomology article suggests that low levels of agricultural pesticides actually increase mosquito fitness and enhance their ability to spread disease. If you are going to chemically treat, it has to be done correctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bonez3 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 That video about the wolf resurgence and overall eco effect comes to mind. I don't think we can predict the full ecological effect. Migration pattern changes, new insect predators, decline in source of food for other animals that prey on them. Not for this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcsluggo Posted September 19, 2016 Share Posted September 19, 2016 On 9/16/2016 at 10:33 PM, Xameil said: Bye bye great white shark... Bye bye alligators bye bye males aged 17 to 29 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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