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Comment by zhivota | Hacker News Reader

I had always assumed this, and my idea of nature bouncing back was more on the millions of years time scale as evolution would result in the refilling of empty ecological niches.

All that said I still think we should just extinct disease carrying mosquitoes.

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There are differing views on evolution, between slow and gradual and punctual equilibrium( a sudden breakthrough that triggers a biological arms race), this article is looking more at the very short term and saying if a species goes extinct another species does not immediately or fully occupy the space...which I guess needs to be stated but I would think that it was already understood...

The article is more focused on oceanic and coastal diversity but I agree about the mosquitoes.

Yeah the news for me here is that people thought nature could "bounce back" on a human timescale. Any human lifespan is just the blink of an eye to nature

I always find the silver fox domestication experiment[0] an interesting point about how much smaller evolutionary timescales can be than expected.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox

> All that said I still think we should just extinct disease carrying mosquitoes.

The modern version of Carthage should be destroyed.

Carthage MUST be destroyed.

Nature is not harmonious, it is in constant flux. Saying it can bounce back implies there some state of equilibrium for it to bounce back to. I guess there's no reason why it can't bounce forward.

Right, we know deserts weren't always deserts, systems collapse.

The earth isn't split up into separate "ecosystems" split by continent and land mass you realise? It's one big system that isn't even sealed off from outer space. And in terms of a truly barren planet, the Sahara is teeming with life

The earth is a system of many systems, individual systems within it can collapse and desertification is one of the ways it happens. Runaway collapse of smaller systems can lead to primary system collapse.

The Sahara is teeming with life compared to Mars, but we also know it once hosted significantly more life before it was a desert. That old system collapsed.

> The earth is a system of many systems

As I've pointed out, these are arbitrary, they make it easier for humans to reason about the problem, but they don't exist. Purely in your head.

And even your Sahara example is bunk, there are like 10 states within it's borders somehow existing in a barren ecology

You're reading past most of what I'm saying. I was speaking in relative terms and more or less said that literally. The Sahara in its current state is much more barren in terms of ecological diversity than it once was.

> The Sahara in its current state is much more barren in terms of ecological diversity than it once was.

Then answer me this... What would be an appropriate level of diversity?

"What would be an appropriate level of diversity?"

> 3 in the Shannon index

you can't answer that question without also specifying who benefits from the diversity, and if it's "for humans" then the sahara currently doesn't contain enough to support the surrounding population on its own

additionally, humans are currently contributing to desertification in a way most other species can not

if your point is that "deserts would have existed anyway" that's fine, but it's still the collapse of a localized system due to external factors (in this case, a system collapse caused by earth's orbit/axial changes)

"Saving the Planet" (George Carlin)

https://youtu.be/7W33HRc1A6c?si=HqyW8mys0uNBuFdW&t=147

Humorous, but not inaccurate about what climate change means to primates. =3

what is "=3"?

cat face long eyes, an amused cat, the person has some disassociation issues

Don't worry about it =3

> All that said I still think we should just extinct disease carrying mosquitoes.

I'm doing my part

Spaceship Trooper or Helldiver? :)

Yes, we often see the history of earth's ecosystem through a geological timescale... human scale is almost light speed by comparison.

What about the animals that feed on those mosquitoes

Mentioned recently was the use of the wolbachia parasite that reduces the ability of a mosquito to transmit disease.

It's an invasive pathogen to a mosquito population, but it benefits humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolbachia#Disease_prevention

There are more than 3000 mosquitoes species. I assume the answer is: nothing.

Sure we should get rid of the diseases, but what about the niche mosquitos serve as food for birds, bats, etc?

There's thousands of species of mosquitoes, and we could get rid of the small number of disease carrying ones at least - https://worksinprogress.co/issue/mosquitoes-are-a-choice/

Details, bro. Just kill stuff until we feel better about our situation

or... apply some science?

Of the ~3500 mosquito species, only about 3% drink human blood. And many of those are invasive in the areas we care about.

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