As annoying as fire ants are, invasive aquatic species like Zebra Mussels are having a frightening impact in the United States. If we can remove them using a similar technique, that would be amazing.
Ants actually serve a purpose in the ecosystem. Mosquitoes are unique in that many ecologists believe mosquito eradication would not adversely affect other species.
The comment referred to fire ants specifically. These have become introduced to countries outside their homeland. For these regions While fire ants offer no purpose, create large economic costs and other issues including killing people.
"every member of the ecosystem plays a role in sustaining the ecosystem" is not entirely true - there are many members of the ecosystem (including this particular species of mosquitoes) that provably are not required to sustain the ecosystem, because they're invasive species who clearly weren't needed to sustain that ecosystem which was just fine before they arrived. In many cases (though not this one) the invasive species actively contributes to destruction of the ecosystem, so preserving the ecosystem may require to fully eliminate a particular species from it.
Most members of an ecosystem play a role in sustaining it, but certainly not all.
> Mosquitoes are unique in that many ecologists believe mosquito eradication would not adversely affect other species.
With all due respect, I read that as “many ecologists can’t imagine how mosquito erradication...” seems like naive interventionism where benefits are known and hence measured but risks are unknown and hence ignored.