Re: Species impact
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After more thought... there is no second. The only species I can think of off the top that exists over the entire globe naturally is the rodent. Or maybe not. Any mice at the poles?
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"Rodent" isn't a species, but more importantly you're forgetting single-celled organisms. I'm still sticking with E Coli, though rice and wheat seem like they may be contenders.
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Plus, no other species is capable of changing an ecosystem without human intervention.
Don't all species (except humans) live in balance with their ecosystem? We're the only ones [censored]-ing things up.
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Species change their environments all the time. These changes are largely responsible for the world as we know it - geologically as well as ecologically. As Rduke pointed out in another thread, species may even drive themselves to extinction by changing their environment. Also, the changes we're making are hardly the most dramatic - early changes in the atmosphere were extreme. One example is that early life probably had trouble surviving in the presence of oxygen, and as oxygen began to be released as a waste product evolution was driven significantly by the "coping mechanisms" of various species.
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