| The question is if "Mosquitoes fill an important niche in a great many ecologies". The Nature article that ak217 linked to describes the north as the primary special case: "Taken all together, then, mosquitoes would be missed in the Arctic — but is the same true elsewhere?" Otherwise, they don't seem to have a key niche, eg, as a food source for insect-eaters. > Ultimately, there seem to be few things that mosquitoes do that other organisms can't do just as well — except perhaps for one. They are lethally efficient at sucking blood from one individual and mainlining it into another, providing an ideal route for the spread of pathogenic microbes. It ends with a quote: > "They don't occupy an unassailable niche in the environment," says entomologist Joe Conlon, of the American Mosquito Control Association in Jacksonville, Florida. "If we eradicated them tomorrow, the ecosystems where they are active will hiccup and then get on with life. Something better or worse would take over." Thus, the article argues that mosquitoes do not fill an important niche in a great many ecologies, though they definitely fill an important niche in the arctic. |