So, what if we instead chose the scorched-Earth approach, and killed them all? What would the consequences be? The simple answer is, we’re not sure.

“We don’t yet know what the knock-on impact on the ecosystem would be. Evidence is scarce,” said Thomas Churcher, an epidemiologist, entomologist and mathematical modeler at Imperial College London who is working to understand the best way to kill mosquitoes.

However, given mosquitoes are a primary food source for numerous animals, including bats, birds, frogs, fish and dragonflies, it’s likely there would be at least some ecological impacts, at least in the short term. Dragonflies, for example, are often known as mosquito hawks, owing to their ability to eat as many as 100 mosquitoes in a single day. It’s likely they, as well as a host of other critters, would, at the very least, have to change their diets somewhat.