All species are related to other species in some way. If a species becomes extinct it will impact on other species. There are various iconic species such as the koala and the giant panda. The first is a symbol of Australia and the second is the logo of the world wildlife fund. Yet the consequences to other species if either of these species would become extinct is not very great. The eucalypts and bamboos on which the koalas and the giant pandas dine would still exist. Probably the only other species that would die out with the disappearance of the koalas and the giant pandas would be the parasites which have evolved to be specific to the koalas and the giant pandas.

We may swat at mosquitoes and wish them all away, but their disappearance would be catastrophic. Many species of songbirds which depend on the mosquitoes for their diet, many species of fish whose fry subsist mainly on mosquito larvae and many species of lizards and other small reptiles would all disappear if there were no more mosquitoes. Mosquitoes are immensely more important to the web of life than the koalas and the giant pandas.

Of course preservation of the koalas and the giant pandas has desirable side effects. To preserve them in the wild requires preserving their habitat, and many other species require that habitat to live. However, we can still question how valuable they are to the web of life.

In the history of life as shown by the fossil record there have been five great extinctions.

At this time the most destructive species is Homo Sapiens. We destroy habitat. We pollute land, sea and air. Our extinction would result in the end of the present sixth great extinction as the habitat of other competing species would stop disappearing. Gradually the toxic chemicals we have put in the biosphere would disintegrate. Our cities would gradually disappear under greenery, and Eden would be restored with no Adam and Eve bringing death.

David F, what a positively depressing post!

Are you saying this world would be better off without us humans?

Wouldn't the predators that are at the top of the food chains in some countries become so prolific that many, many other species would be wiped out as well as the humans?

A sad thought.

I hope us humans can learn to live in this world more wisely, or maybe your predictions just may come true.

There is a great temptation to embrace fatalist ideas, and then promote them as a rational and logical sequence of events. There is always some catastrophe about to wipe the planet out, and usually accompanied by a solution which wont cost too much...
You and me dont matter in the slightest, in the big picture of things. None of us do.
We are overdue to be extinct, as a species, but human brain development has prevented this from happening. There will be extinction events in the future, as there has been in the past, usually related to meteorites and stuff like that.
The end is remotely possibly nigh, but at this stage there is no need for concern.

Dear Suzeonline,

Predators do not become too prolific as a shortage of prey rapidly curtails their numbers.

A long time ago I worked on early ecological studies. If we take a simple ecological system of rabbits, foxes and grass the population of rabbits will approximate a sine curve increasing and decreasing. The poulation of foxes will also approximate a sine curve following the sine curve of the rabbits. This was a computer model, but data from the field confirmed that it worked that way.

Yes, I am saying the world would be better off without us.

Depressing? I think it's a big laugh.

Any species will eventually become extinct. Most other species will flourish with our extinction. Some like the crows for whom we provide road kill and rats for whom we provide heaps of grain will also decline with our demise.

Dear davidf,

I believe I may have ribbed you on an earlier thread about your views on this sounding very much like a Genesis God and this time you offer the statement “Eden would be restored with no Adam and Eve bringing death”.

I doubt however that the lion will ever lay again with the lamb and that the concept of what it takes for something to be an 'Eden' is surely a human one an without us it must cease to exist.

Your final comment though does bring to mind A.D.Hope's Imperial Adam.

http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/poetry/poems/imperialAdam.html

“And the first murderer lay upon the earth.”

But if yours is a call to mend our ways then you get no argument from me. I have spent the last three weeks doing a number of newspaper and radio interviews, visiting a series of politicians and candidates, all to turn around some of the disasters we have inherited from past practices.

And although I am developing a callous on my forehead if I didn't think we were improving as a species I wouldn't bother.

You know, my lady scoffed at me & told me I was becomming paranoid just the other day, when I suggested that some twit would want to make spraying mozzies & flies illegal, in the next 20 years or so.

I was way off with the timing, but right about the twit.

Mate, not the whole species, but the earth just may be improved with the elimination of a few individual humans.