Final answer:
Mitosis in mosquitoes is crucial for their growth, development, and tissue repair throughout their life cycle, directly affecting the population dynamics of these insects.
Step-by-step explanation:
The function of mitosis in the mosquito serves several purposes, such as growth, development from the larval stage to the adult mosquito, and tissue repair. Mitosis is a process of cell division that results in two daughter cells each having the same number and kind of chromosomes as the parent nucleus, typical of ordinary tissue growth. The importance of mitosis is readily observed in the context of the mosquito life cycle. In the larval and pupal stages, mitosis contributes to the rapid cell division necessary for the insect to grow and eventually undergo metamorphosis into an adult mosquito.
If during mitosis the sister chromatids of one of the chromosomes did not separate, this condition, known as nondisjunction, would lead to the formation of cells with an abnormal number of chromosomes, which can cause developmental issues or lethality. In the case of genetically modified mosquitoes, creating modifications that cause them to die in the larval stage is a method used to control populations, as seen in figure 4.13 from Rice University referenced in the provided materials.