By Eric Stock
NORMAL – A study at Illinois State University aims to find out if we are exterminating mosquitoes properly, and if – maybe – some might even be worth saving.
When mosquitoes are in the news it’s usually not good, as the West Nile and Zika viruses are both carried by the pesky flies.
Steven Juliano, an ecology professor at ISU, suggested it might not be wise to try to eradicate the nuisances.
“I get this question all the time, ‘Why don’t we eliminate all mosquitoes?’ ” Juliano said. “It might be harmful in the sense that there are probably some of these mosquitoes that fulfill important roles within natural communities and eliminating them would probably have known but potentially negative consequences.”
Juliano added a full scale extermination would be impossible or ‘an enormous’ waste of effort.
Juliano has received a $435,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to explore ways to reduce mosquito populations without unintended consequences.
Juliano pointed to an apparent paradox: attempts to kill mosquito larvae with pesticides in areas of greater density in some cases might actually cause them to grow in greater numbers.
“The main reason we think this happens in that by reducing the density of larvae, you relieve the survivors of the harsh effects of crowding, so the survivors benefit from the reduction in density,” Juliano said.
There are more than 3,500 species of mosquitoes, 60 of them are in Illinois.
Eric Stock can be reached at eric.stock@cumulus.com.
