Daniel A. H. Peach in The Conversation:
Mosquitoes. Hordes of them, buzzing in your ear and biting incessantly, a maddening nuisance without equal. And not to mention the devastating health impacts caused by malaria, Zika virus and other pathogens they spread.
But mosquitoes have a whole other life that doesn’t involve biting us; it revolves around their ecological interactions with plants.
We often view mosquitoes as bloodsuckers that do nothing but make our lives miserable. However, mosquitoes do have ecological functions. From pollination to ant puke, the secret life of mosquitoes is both bizarre and ecologically important.
Mosquitoes have many functions in the ecosystem that are overlooked. Indiscriminate mass elimination of mosquitoes would impact everything from pollination to biomass transfer to food webs.
More here.