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Ecology: A world without mosquitoes

Nature volume 466, pages 432–434 (2010)Cite this article

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Eradicating any organism would have serious consequences for ecosystems — wouldn't it? Not when it comes to mosquitoes, finds Janet Fang.

Every day, Jittawadee Murphy unlocks a hot, padlocked room at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Silver Spring, Maryland, to a swarm of malaria-carrying mosquitoes (Anopheles stephensi). She gives millions of larvae a diet of ground-up fish food, and offers the gravid females blood to suck from the bellies of unconscious mice — they drain 24 of the rodents a month. Murphy has been studying mosquitoes for 20 years, working on ways to limit the spread of the parasites they carry. Still, she says, she would rather they were wiped off the Earth.

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  1. Janet Fang
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Janet Fang is an intern in Nature's Washington DC office.

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Armed Forces Pest Management Board

USDA Agricultural Research Service

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Fang, J. Ecology: A world without mosquitoes. Nature 466, 432–434 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/466432a

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