Well, the OP did.
I’m disappointed that wiser heads have ruled my suggestion to be inadmissable.
Intestinal fauna?
ants.
the world would be uninhabitable in a matter of months. At least that is what one famous entymologist claims.
Humans. I know I couldn’t live if they all suddenly died.
Yeah out of all the animals in the world Humans dont really contribute anything, i mean sure we try and fix the mistakes we made by helping animals and stuff but we caused all that. I think an animal we could live without would be either a kangaroo or jellyfish
This Domino Effect is possibly a better explanation for the mass extinctions in the past than volcanos and asteroids.
A small environmental change could wipe out one species and cause massive damage. However I’d like to point out that life on earth carried on after each mass extinsion event we know of. (And I’d guess it carried on after the ones we don’t know about too)
As for the OP, I’d vote for some sort of aquatic carnivore. Given that they eat the aquatic herbivores who eat the algea that produce our oxygen.
Jellyfish I agree, but the Kangaroos ? I don’t know.
I really get tired of hearing crap like this.
We pesky, planet-abusing humans have the ability to put out fires (started by lightning) that used to burn the size of states, wiping out species left and right. It is arguable that for this very reason there are more trees in, say North America, now than the time before Columbus discovered it.
Our presence also keeps countless species of animals in population check that would otherwise grossly over populate, creating massive wipeouts of crops and disease. I’m thinking about deer specifically, as I live in an area where it is unlawful to hunt them and there are thousands of sickly, pathetic deer that are starving because of over population.
But I’d hate to further take away from your ability to be self-loathing, so carry on.
My cite from usgovinfo.about.com
I know this one. Bees!
I appreciate that you found this cite, but it still strikes me as a real stretch. The idea that in a country where forests have been greatly reduced in size we have more trees because of fire suppression seems unlikely. We certainly have more trees than we did 100 years ago as farms have shifted to larger sizes in more open areas, but more trees that 1492? Sounds unlikely. But again, you found a cite. Perhaps I can find some more details myself.
I’m sure you could.
The main point is that humans are indeed putting out fires that would have burned unchecked and wiped out species, thus indicating a usefullness that is rarely credited. I just get tired of hearing about how humans are the worst thing to ever happen to the planet.
I read your quote below…but how is this even remotely plausible? Millions of acres that were heavily forested are now paved or plowed. What is the rationale?
What did the deer do before humans came to North America?
Sailboat
I’m no expert, but one of the first things that come to mind is the reforestation of land owned (especially in the south) by commercial paper and timber companies that, for years, have been planting more than they have been cutting down (more trees per square acre than existed before they were felled) because they have a vested interest in trees. This means you can now find large areas where 20 trees exist where there were only about six to ten in that same spot before. Scientists estimate that America’s forest land contain some 230 billion trees–around 1,000 for each person, and more trees are being planted each year. On the nation’s commercial forest land, net annual growth exceeds removals through harvesting by an impressive 31 percent each year. And the amount of wood in our nation’s forests continues to increase. We have added 28 million cubic feet of wood since 1977.
There is a logging technique called even-age management --removing all of the trees from a stand rather than picking and choosing. Some seedlings won’t grow in the shade of mature trees, so removing all of the trees in the stand allows the light to reach the forest floor. And sometimes something calamitous, like a fire or windstorm, a tree disease, or an insect epidemic, requires that the damaged trees be removed so that new trees can get a start. In each case, the type of harvest method (eg. selective thinning and even-age management) used is dictated by the type of tree being harvested, the terrain, and what conditions are needed to start the next forest there. This kind of thing doesn’t happen without human intervention.
Also, as I’ve mentioned, we are putting out fires that burned considerable-sized areas of land, thereby preserving the trees in that area.
The predator species are greatly diminished. Not many bears left in Ohio, and no cougars or wolves, so we have way too many deer.
Mine’s flora - doesn’t include anything from the animal kingdom, at least I bloody hope not.
Loseing all the dogs and cats would be really bad. Then we would have to get an alternative like monkeys and apes for pets and you know what a slippery slope that could turn out to be.
I tracked it down. that is actually a quote from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, not the US Government, as your cite implies. The CEI is, well, let’s say as far as relying on them for facts, closer to the Wall Street Journal editorial page than the Wall Street Journal’s news reporting.
Of course the CEI carefully constructed their statement ‘some researchers believe…’ is almost impossible to disprove. However, no reputable scientists argue that there are more trees in North America (or the U.S.) now than in 1492. In fact, any real data will show the opposite. (In New England, but not much of the rest of the country, a lot of land that was farm in 1820 was abandoned and grew in to forest, which is now being gradually converted to suburbs. But in most of the country, it’s been a steady decline in trees.)
And Euthanasiast, do you know that quite a few species (including some trees) actually depend on wildfires (for instance, pinecones that only open after the heat of a fire)? Wildfires don’t wipe out species; they might destroy many individual trees, thereby creating opportunities for a different mix of species (such as grasses and aforementioned fire-adapted pines), but they don’t wipe out species.
At least, that seems to be true for forests that have been subjected to periodic fires for a very long time. And what Doper could be more appropriate than Quercus to point this out? (The dominance of oaks in many forests is maintained by periodic forest fires.)
There are earthworms native to North America. Here’s what one of the Master’s minions says on this topic.
Where did I say that my cite was from the US Govt? I merely linked to the site from where I pulled my data. Truthfully, I couldn’t care less that it came from a government website, as they are no more reputable than anyone else when it comes to ‘facts’, these days especially. And how is the data provided in my cite impossible to disprove. I provided hard numeric data. This is the easiest kind to disprove if you have numbers that undermine the ones provided.
Also, I’m going to need a cite as to your claim that the existence of trees in this country has been on a steady decline. Nowhere in my search has it been posited that this is the case. Furthermore, it would serve to bolster your argument if you could provide a cite that disputes the numbers that I provided in my own, rather than attack the source simply because it isn’t liberal in nature or doesn’t serve to reinforce your opinion. Your claim that because the data came from the CEI, and therefore isn’t reputable, simply isn’t going to cut it.
And yes, I am well aware of the need for fires in the ‘maintenance’ of our forests. Nowhere is that more true right now than where I live, where we have been combating the largest known fire in the history of my state. The undergrowth over the past several hundred years has long needed wiping out for the benefit of trees in this region.
Yes, wildfires do wipe out species, especially those left unchecked like those that formed thousands of years before man had the technological ability to combat them. And when I said species, I was referring to animal species, not necessarily plant species, as my post clearly indicates and as was the subject of this thread.