36
votes
What animal or insect going extinct would have the greatest impact on the ecosystem?
Curious on some replies here. I always hear having bees go extinct would be horrible for us. Curious if that’s the worse?
Curious on some replies here. I always hear having bees go extinct would be horrible for us. Curious if that’s the worse?
Humanity, if we died off so many ecological niches will open back up to be filled by other animals.
Ohhh. Good take. I did not think of it in the reverse like this.
Phytoplankton would be my guess. I’m no marine biologist, but they seem pretty important to the oceanic ecosystem. They’re the base of the oceanic food chain and produce the majority of oxygen on Earth. As the oceans warm, the phytoplankton will be killed off. That won’t be good for us.
"Baleen whales primarily feed on krill, which themselves primarily eat phytoplankton. Each depends on the other — whales eat the iron-rich krill and redeposit that iron in the upper levels of the ocean through their feces where it can fuel the phytoplankton blooms that krill depend on."
Save the whales, save the phytoplankton. Kill the whales, well, you see where that goes.
That’s true. But my bigger worry is oceanic warming, specifically a “blue ocean event” which is an ice-free Arctic. The Arctic acts as a huge ice cube that keeps the oceans cool. But there will come a time when the Arctic ice floes melt in the summer, causing a temperature rise throughout the oceans, killing off phytoplankton and ushering in unpredictable weather patterns.
And that time is coming sooner than we thought: The Arctic may be sea ice-free in summer by the 2030s, new study warns
Yeah, you’re right. How about prochlorococcus? If we lost that genus of cyanobacteria, it wouldn’t be great. They produce something like 20% of oxygen on Earth. But maybe someone else knows better than me. Regardless, rising ocean temperatures could very well wipe out many of these microspecies simultaneously.
I remember reading somewhere that ants, termites or bees dying off would have major consequences but I don't remember the reasoning. Bees do a lot of pollinating which is vital for plants.
Ants are scavengers so they assist with the decomposition process. The massive networks of tunnels probably aerate the soil similar to worms.
If we are talking the greatest positive impact I'd say humans or one of our many domesticated species.
The disappearance of Parrotfish may not not create an apocalyptic scenario like deleting an entire trophic level but they are very important stewards of coral reefs and surrounding areas. They literally eat rocks, sponges and bits of dead coral which is ground up and excreted as sand. This provides living space for new corals and generates a sizeable portion of the sand on beaches. They are the only fish that provide these services in places such as the great barrier reef.
The greatest negative impact already has a ton good answers here so I tried to come up with something interesting!
Earthworms (assuming you considered them all "one type of animal").
Maybe Nitrogen Fixing Bacteria? Photosynthesizing plants would probably all go extinct and maybe most of the terrestrial food chain with it.
This is a great question that I'm not nearly informed enough to answer. But I can make wild guesses! Either mosquitoes or mice, I think. Both are widely populous prey and cutting them out suddenly would likely cause mass food shortages for a wide array of creatures.
I read an article about somewhere that was looking at engineering mosquitos to be infertile so that the population died out. They had looked at the animals that preyed on them and the knock-on effects and found that actually losing the mosquitos wouldn’t make a big impact because they were a relatively small part of the predators diet which could be filled with other insects without significant decimation to their populations. I can’t say whether this holds true everywhere, but in this place (I want to say somewhere in California but I could be wildly wrong about that) the mosquitos were largely useless as part of the food chain
Edit: my own uninformed guess would be ants or termites since they’re both pretty high biomass on the planet
Yup, in fact, in the US, most mosquitoes that people encounter are not indigenous to the US. Aedes Aegypti, also called the tiger mosquito is not native to the US. It's very aggressive, carries diseases and has taken over the habitat of our native species. If that species was eliminated from the US, the native species would come back and they are not nearly as bad and easier to control. Thirty years ago, mosquitoes were a mild annoyance then Aedes Aegypti started talking over.
Ah yes thank you, I knew I was missing an important detail in there. I suppose that probably means that native species are much more important ecologically. A quick google says some species are important pollinators, which I didn’t know, and reminded me about how important the larval stage is in fish diets
Yeah, the sterile mosquito programs all target Aedes Aegypti. There is another invasive species here too, but Aedes is by far the worst.
This is an interesting take. I would not have guessed either.
Bees are hypercritical to ecosystems all over the world, which is why the subject of their decline is so often raised with alarm bells. As @FeminalPanda said, there are many other pollinators: butterflies and moths, bats, birds, wasps, beetles. Insects of all sorts. All pollinators are important, both in the wild and in agriculture. But bees are a special case because they are remarkably efficient and industrious.
There are thousands of different species, and they come in many colors, sizes and shapes. Some are even metallic and iridescent! Some flowering plants have evolved symbiotic relationships with bees, offering small amounts of nectar and pollen at a time to make them visit multiple flowers, producing special scents or visual patterns on their petals (only visible in UV) that appeal more to bees, or even forming shapes that mimic the appearance of bees outright, to attract them specifically. Orchids provide many great examples of these subtle evolutionary pairings.
Of course the species best known to us is the honey bee. If you’ve ever watched them at work you know how fantastic they are at what they do. Foraging honey bees return to their hive dusted all over in pollen, with special “baskets” built into their legs to carry even more. They also collect nectar and oils, and dance to give their sisters very specific directions to the best new foraging spots.
Dozens of humans on ladders, working for days, can’t do what a colony of honey bees can do for an orchard on a sunny afternoon. And while some agricultural crops do self-pollinate in the wind, like cereals such as wheat and rice, many commercial crops depend on bees. Farmers sometimes maintain their own colonies or even rent them out from beekeepers to ensure pollination.
It’s when the bees begin to disappear from a place that we see how critical they are. Fewer bees means reduced yield of crops, less fruit, fewer seeds, and then fewer sprouts. A stagnant and then dwindling population means greater susceptibility to other threats: invasive insects, drought, fire, blight. Events that might only put a dent in their population normally can wipe them out. Animals who depend on the affected plant for food, hydration or shelter also have to look elsewhere. This in turn affects other animals and other plants, in cascading effect.
Unfortunately bees are vulnerable to a lot of things. Storms, drought, predators, fungi, mites, weed killers and pesticides (and in the case of honey bees, competing hives and any ambitious animal who likes eating honey). The list is so long. Luckily we’ve learned a lot about them over the past few decades that I hope will help us to save them long-term.
Off the top of my head, some other species that are super critical to their ecosystems:
All living things that support many other kinds of living things, and contribute to the balance that makes an ecosystem thrive.
Learning about keystone species like bees is a springboard to learning how the broader systems of nature work, and how intricate and fragile those systems are. How beautiful, too!
I get that there's a terrible Nic Cage movie about this- which is probably at least part of why it isn't taken very seriously- but if you like food... Bees.
I'm assuming even those.... Unfriendly things.... called wasps and hornets also do this, but I know for 100% fact that the many variety of bees are responsible for making sure cross-pollination occurs, and therefore crops are able to grow. If bees (and possibly their less friendly relatives) were to disappear,there's heavy implication that crops would also fail and a massive food shortage would occur.
Granted, I've also heard rumors that technology is being made as a back-up for this kind of event, but I think that would prove vastly inferior.
about-pollinators
Although birds, bats, and other creatures are also pollinators, insects are the animals that do the bulk of the pollination that affects our daily lives. Some of these insect pollinators will be familiar, bees and butterflies, but you might be surprised by some of the others, flies, wasps, and beetles.
I think earth worms would be a big deal if they were extinct.
i can't explain why but birds