Are you serious? Have you taken a biology course? A species is not an isolated unit, organisms are interdependent. If one species goes extinct from unnatural disaster (aka us humans), it can throw an entire ecosystem out of whack. Natural extinctions do happen, but extinctions due to poaching, loss of habitat, and the human footprint are a whole different ballgame...
It doesn't matter if they're keystone species or not, if there's barely any of them left then their impact is minimized and the ecosystem has already at least started to adjust to their relative absence.
Nothing there refutes what I said. The first one is just a list of keystone species, and the other just says that sea otters are a keystone species.
Neither claims that the extinction of an already endangered species is some manner of tipping point that will do far more damage than if the small number of that species were to remain.
"In the 1700s, sea otters along the coast of California were hunted nearly to extinction for their furs and killed by fishermen who thought they were eating too much of the fish they wanted to catch. When the otters disappeared, the animals they normally eat, sea urchins, enjoyed a large population boom. Soon, there were so many sea urchins that they ate all of the kelp, a type of seaweed, at the bottom of the ocean, and caused an “urchin barren” to form, which means that the ocean floor is scraped clean and becomes an “ocean desert” in the ocean that is essentially devoid of life."
Okay, but you said "endangered special are not a problem. The species dies out, nothing happens" and clearly, having a small number of otters or if the otters had gone extinct, the ecosystem would have collapsed...
See you say "or", which means that being endangered has (approximately) the same effect as being extinct. So there wouldn't be a difference if an endangered species went extinct.
Also, "collapse" is a pretty strong word for the ecosystem adjusting to a change.
I think whether the species is endangered or extinct, there is a negative impact on the environment when it comes to critical species. Extinction is certainly worse, considering there's then no hope for a population regrowth. And collapse seems pretty accurate considering the habitat we were talking about was "devoid of life" by the end.
"I think whether the species is endangered or extinct, there is a negative impact on the environment when it comes to critical species."
I think so too, in a general sense. All I'm saying is that if the species is already endangered then they don't have a large enough population to have a significant effect on the environment. By that point the damage has already been done.
"Extinction is certainly worse, considering there's then no hope for a population regrowth."
I don't really don't care enough about animals to care about some going extinct, but I suppose if you do that's fine. I don't think it should be any sort of humanitarian issue, though.
"And collapse seems pretty accurate considering the habitat we were talking about was "devoid of life" by the end. "
Yes, but in that same sentence they also compared it to a desert, which is a naturally occurring habitat, and later on said that the fishermen have "less fish to catch", not "no fish to catch".
https://thisisnoordinaryworld.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/sea-otters-adorable-endangered-and-a-keystone-species/
Neither claims that the extinction of an already endangered species is some manner of tipping point that will do far more damage than if the small number of that species were to remain.
Also, "collapse" is a pretty strong word for the ecosystem adjusting to a change.
I think so too, in a general sense. All I'm saying is that if the species is already endangered then they don't have a large enough population to have a significant effect on the environment. By that point the damage has already been done.
"Extinction is certainly worse, considering there's then no hope for a population regrowth."
I don't really don't care enough about animals to care about some going extinct, but I suppose if you do that's fine. I don't think it should be any sort of humanitarian issue, though.
"And collapse seems pretty accurate considering the habitat we were talking about was "devoid of life" by the end. "
Yes, but in that same sentence they also compared it to a desert, which is a naturally occurring habitat, and later on said that the fishermen have "less fish to catch", not "no fish to catch".
I thought of Mufasa
HOW FUCKING DARE YOU
WD-40 CAN'T HELP HIM NOW