[soundwave106]

Several Hacker News items regarding massive overall insect decline in general, and as far as I can tell, the general consensus has been that this is not a good thing. [1] [2] I think this is sort of where the concern is coming from.

The mosquito is a special case considering how it carries lethal diseases, of course. So to me, control is certainly acceptable (mass extinction, I'm not so sure either).

My guess is at any rate that this won't be a mass solution even if it 100% works -- applied at too much scale and a likely result is mosquitoes will develop resistance to Wolbachia (just as they have with chemicals when we tried massive control with pesticides). As a localized solution, this is intriguing.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14323533 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15502074