Drones To Deliver Millions Of Mosquitoes to Prevent Bird Extinctions In Hawai‘i
Drones To Deliver Millions Of Mosquitoes to Prevent Bird Extinctions In Hawai‘i
Tags: Genetic incompatibilities, Incompatible insect technique, North America, WolbachiaGrrlScientist, Forbes, 2025.
In a brilliant demonstration of multidisciplinary collaboration, a conservation program to save Hawai’i’s critically endangered native bird species has taken another step forward. After a team of scientists created “reproductively incompatible” male mosquitoes in the lab, the next challenge was to safely deliver them to where they would most effectively suppress mosquito populations in Hawai’i. “Reproductively incompatible” male mosquitoes are created by infecting their mothers with the bacteria, Wolbachia. This bacteria, which naturally occurs in many wild insect species, interferes with reproduction in mosquitoes by making the Wolbachia-males reproductively incompatible with normal wild-type female mosquitoes. (But the males can successfully reproduce with females infected with the same strain of Wolbachia – that is how the millions of mosquitoes needed for this project are produced in the lab.) When these reproductively incompatible Wolbachia-male mosquitoes mate with normal wild female mosquitoes, the resulting eggs cannot hatch, thereby reducing the mosquito population.
The good news in this story (which will become important as you read on) is that male mosquitoes (regardless of whether they carry Wolbachia) do not bite or transmit disease, and feed only on plant juices and nectar for survival and energy. On the other hand, female mosquitoes do bite because they need a fresh blood meal to produce eggs. Additionally, because mosquitoes infected with Wolbachia bacteria are not genetically modified, and because Wolbachia bacteria naturally occur in 60% or more wild insects, these mosquitoes are safe.
