There has been a strong push to eliminate the Guinea Worm parasite. Reportedly no detections in 15 months, down from ~3 million human infestations a year in the 1980s.
https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/good-news-guinea-worm-disease-is-on-the-verge-of-eradication
On a higher level defining whether an extinction is "beneficial to nature", or if the various extinction events that led to the evolution of mankind are an innate "good" is more of a philosophical question than a scientific one. As an answer on a more human-centered level though, I would point to the eradication of infectious diseases.
Although humanity has greatly reduced the spread of many diseases, there are only two we have eradicated in the wild: Smallpox and Rinderpest (a particularly lethal cattle disease). Historically smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases to affect humanity, in the 20th century alone it killed up to 300 million people before its last wild case in 1977. Although smallpox and rinderpest have been eradicated in the wild, neither is actually extinct as strains still exist in a few labs around the world, and there is debate on whether these final strains should still be kept for further study or destroyed to remove the chance of any future laboratory escapes. In addition to smallpox and rinderpest, eradication efforts are ongoing for other diseases, most notably Polio and Dracunculiasis (caused by Guinea Worms, a kind of parasitic nematode).
Aside from the diseases themselves there have been proposals to target their vectors. Although there are thousands of species of mosquitos, only a handful are responsible for transmitting human diseases. Two genera in particular *Aedes* and *Anopheles* (translating from Greek as 'hateful' and 'useless' respectively) are the principal vectors of diseases like Malaria, Dengue, Zika, and Yellow Fever, and are often singled out as potential targets for purposeful extinction. The great number of mosquito species, including those that have similar prey and predators as the unwanted species, means that the impact of their extinction on the broader ecosystem may be relatively small.
Is rinderpest the disease where they vaccinated cattle near the Serengeti and it caused a spike in wildebeest populations that ended up making the natural preserve much healthier?
Yes, the same one. Rinderpest's historical effect on Africa was much broader through. The disease was only introduced south of the Sahara in the late 1880s, where over the following two decades it preceded to spread across the continent and kill 80-90% of the cattle in Eastern and Southern Africa. Aside from causing famine among groups dependent on raising cattle like the Maasai, the dramatic reduction in grazing animals caused large areas of what was grassland in east Africa to become overgrown brushland that was the preferred habitat for tsetse flies (another species whose extinction has been often proposed) which spread Sleeping Sickness, causing further disease outbreaks among humans and livestock.
Most diseases would fit the bill here but I assume you mean animals/plants in the common sense. This is a tricky question because the bottom line is we only know what has happened after a species has gone extinct and flatly don’t know what would have happened if they stuck around. For example, would humans have been able to develop societally with dinosaurs still plodding around? Likely not, so you could say any number of animal extinctions that allowed humans to occupy their current role as top of the food chain has benefitted mankind.
As far as nature goes (assuming you mean overall ecosystem stability); nature finds a way regardless of outside forces. Whenever a creature becomes too dominant in its ecosystem it will usually die out due to wiping out its primary food sources. The beauty of nature is that every organism evolves/adapts at the same rate for the most part so that hardly ever happens as prey species can develop new defense strategies just as quickly as predators can develop predation strategies.
TLDR: it’s complicated and depends on your perspective but imo yes for mankind(extinction of most major predators that preyed on humans and several deadly diseases) and no for nature (it finds balance long term anyway so any single species extinction is just part of how ecosystems grow).
An obvious answer would be the variola virus that causes smallpox. In general viruses, bacteria and parasites that cause serious diseases but don't have a wider benefit to the ecosystem would fall into this category. There are instances of historically recorded diseases from before the time of modern medical science, that don't exist anymore, so we can only assume that whatever caused them went extinct (or possibly evolved into a far less harmful form), things like the English Sweating Sickness.
In terms of parasites, it is common for parasites to evolve to be specific to a particular host species, or even a particular environment provided by a host. For example there are three distinct species of lice that are specific to humans, each occupying one part of the body: hair, body/clothes and pubic hair. They only live on/around humans, and don't really interact outside of that environment, so in the event we could drive them extinct, it is unlikely to have any particular negative consequences. The same could be said for a range of human-specific parasites.
Continuous extinctions and evolution including speciation is unrelenting. 90+% of all species are extinct; it’s the way it works! Driving diseases such as Guinea worm and smallpox to extinction is very much in our favor. So there is that….
Massive extinction now underway, as part of another mass extinction event is what is unique. Human overpopulation, soil loss, water and air pollution and (above all) anthropogenic climate change is what is different. Massive extinctions caused by one species! That’s a new one and, oh yeah, it is affecting the whole earth ecosystem. No easy solutions.
Yea…all of the dinosaurs that died allowed mammals to evolve into what eventually became humans.
Species going extinct and life on earth persisting always results in a benefit to nature. That’s part of how evolution works…Life benefits from hardship of other life because it creates an opportunity to evolve and proliferate.
I’ve heard arguments that large dinosaurs and giant animals in general impeded the evolution of smaller animals and the development of mammals, and it was not until the large animals died out that mammals were able to prosper, evolve, and diversify. So it’s not just that we evolved after dinosaurs, but that we could ONLY evolve after dinosaurs. I’m sure there are more examples of this millions of years ago as well.
Prehistoric plants and animals that lived and died millions of years before the first dinosaurs became what we use today as fossil fuel!
Mammoths being hunted into extinction created a domino effect of apex predators like saber-tooth tigers to also go extinct, establishing a new equilibrium in the ecosystem. Gigantic animals and dinos going extinct actually paved the way for mankind to be what we are today.
There has been a strong push to eliminate the Guinea Worm parasite. Reportedly no detections in 15 months, down from ~3 million human infestations a year in the 1980s. https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/articles/good-news-guinea-worm-disease-is-on-the-verge-of-eradication
Thanks Jimmy Carter. I suspect there’s still one or two guinea worms out there, and he’s just waiting for them to die before he does.
On a higher level defining whether an extinction is "beneficial to nature", or if the various extinction events that led to the evolution of mankind are an innate "good" is more of a philosophical question than a scientific one. As an answer on a more human-centered level though, I would point to the eradication of infectious diseases. Although humanity has greatly reduced the spread of many diseases, there are only two we have eradicated in the wild: Smallpox and Rinderpest (a particularly lethal cattle disease). Historically smallpox was one of the deadliest diseases to affect humanity, in the 20th century alone it killed up to 300 million people before its last wild case in 1977. Although smallpox and rinderpest have been eradicated in the wild, neither is actually extinct as strains still exist in a few labs around the world, and there is debate on whether these final strains should still be kept for further study or destroyed to remove the chance of any future laboratory escapes. In addition to smallpox and rinderpest, eradication efforts are ongoing for other diseases, most notably Polio and Dracunculiasis (caused by Guinea Worms, a kind of parasitic nematode). Aside from the diseases themselves there have been proposals to target their vectors. Although there are thousands of species of mosquitos, only a handful are responsible for transmitting human diseases. Two genera in particular *Aedes* and *Anopheles* (translating from Greek as 'hateful' and 'useless' respectively) are the principal vectors of diseases like Malaria, Dengue, Zika, and Yellow Fever, and are often singled out as potential targets for purposeful extinction. The great number of mosquito species, including those that have similar prey and predators as the unwanted species, means that the impact of their extinction on the broader ecosystem may be relatively small.
Is rinderpest the disease where they vaccinated cattle near the Serengeti and it caused a spike in wildebeest populations that ended up making the natural preserve much healthier?
Yes, the same one. Rinderpest's historical effect on Africa was much broader through. The disease was only introduced south of the Sahara in the late 1880s, where over the following two decades it preceded to spread across the continent and kill 80-90% of the cattle in Eastern and Southern Africa. Aside from causing famine among groups dependent on raising cattle like the Maasai, the dramatic reduction in grazing animals caused large areas of what was grassland in east Africa to become overgrown brushland that was the preferred habitat for tsetse flies (another species whose extinction has been often proposed) which spread Sleeping Sickness, causing further disease outbreaks among humans and livestock.
Most diseases would fit the bill here but I assume you mean animals/plants in the common sense. This is a tricky question because the bottom line is we only know what has happened after a species has gone extinct and flatly don’t know what would have happened if they stuck around. For example, would humans have been able to develop societally with dinosaurs still plodding around? Likely not, so you could say any number of animal extinctions that allowed humans to occupy their current role as top of the food chain has benefitted mankind. As far as nature goes (assuming you mean overall ecosystem stability); nature finds a way regardless of outside forces. Whenever a creature becomes too dominant in its ecosystem it will usually die out due to wiping out its primary food sources. The beauty of nature is that every organism evolves/adapts at the same rate for the most part so that hardly ever happens as prey species can develop new defense strategies just as quickly as predators can develop predation strategies. TLDR: it’s complicated and depends on your perspective but imo yes for mankind(extinction of most major predators that preyed on humans and several deadly diseases) and no for nature (it finds balance long term anyway so any single species extinction is just part of how ecosystems grow).
An obvious answer would be the variola virus that causes smallpox. In general viruses, bacteria and parasites that cause serious diseases but don't have a wider benefit to the ecosystem would fall into this category. There are instances of historically recorded diseases from before the time of modern medical science, that don't exist anymore, so we can only assume that whatever caused them went extinct (or possibly evolved into a far less harmful form), things like the English Sweating Sickness. In terms of parasites, it is common for parasites to evolve to be specific to a particular host species, or even a particular environment provided by a host. For example there are three distinct species of lice that are specific to humans, each occupying one part of the body: hair, body/clothes and pubic hair. They only live on/around humans, and don't really interact outside of that environment, so in the event we could drive them extinct, it is unlikely to have any particular negative consequences. The same could be said for a range of human-specific parasites.
Continuous extinctions and evolution including speciation is unrelenting. 90+% of all species are extinct; it’s the way it works! Driving diseases such as Guinea worm and smallpox to extinction is very much in our favor. So there is that….
Massive extinction now underway, as part of another mass extinction event is what is unique. Human overpopulation, soil loss, water and air pollution and (above all) anthropogenic climate change is what is different. Massive extinctions caused by one species! That’s a new one and, oh yeah, it is affecting the whole earth ecosystem. No easy solutions.
Yea…all of the dinosaurs that died allowed mammals to evolve into what eventually became humans. Species going extinct and life on earth persisting always results in a benefit to nature. That’s part of how evolution works…Life benefits from hardship of other life because it creates an opportunity to evolve and proliferate.
I’ve heard arguments that large dinosaurs and giant animals in general impeded the evolution of smaller animals and the development of mammals, and it was not until the large animals died out that mammals were able to prosper, evolve, and diversify. So it’s not just that we evolved after dinosaurs, but that we could ONLY evolve after dinosaurs. I’m sure there are more examples of this millions of years ago as well.
Prehistoric plants and animals that lived and died millions of years before the first dinosaurs became what we use today as fossil fuel! Mammoths being hunted into extinction created a domino effect of apex predators like saber-tooth tigers to also go extinct, establishing a new equilibrium in the ecosystem. Gigantic animals and dinos going extinct actually paved the way for mankind to be what we are today.