Talk:Kindergarten/@comment-26339799-20150511030207/@comment-28584561-20150517091459

You do realize bacteria are both organic and living right?

Also, removing a single component from the food chain can have varying effects, saying that removing one will end up shattering it is somewhat uninformed properly.

As Neeneko has said, food chains and food webs are complicated. It will always try to find equilibrium again. Homeostasis is one of the most important aspects of a thriving community.

Pioneer species are the first to move into undisturbed and uninhabited land (lands that don't have other flora or fauna) and initiate the food chain/web, if they can't start out, then no chain or web will occur. If a web has already been established, the one thing that can decide it's fate is the keystone species. Removal of a single species that isn't a major contributor, is not a keystone species, and is not that large in terms of biomass, can have very little effect on the food chain/web. The Dodo is an example, it became extinct in the early 1680s. Though the extinction had an effect in the environment, did it shatter all life? No. Predators of the Dodo found new prey that were growing in number because of the competion of the ecosystem had lessened due to the extinction of the Dodo.

Not every species on earth will have a negative domino effect when they go extinct. Some of their effects might just be insignificant, other's might be life shattering. Not everything in a community is equal but are needed for survival, to some extent.