Wildlife

[ysabetwordsmith]

There are two categories of wildlife that are essential to biodiversity and habitat health: keystone species and ecosystem engineers. Often one species fills both roles, but they are actually separate things. A keystone species is all about its relationship with other plants and animals. An ecosystem engineer relies on its ability to alter the physical environment. If you're into habitat restoration or other wildlife gardening, focus on keystone plant and animal species of your area. Most ecosystem engineers will only fit in a larger landscape, but may be feasible if your yard happens to fall inside one (e.g. squirrels in an oak forest area).


What Is a Keystone Species? These Four Examples Will Help Explain

The keystone species concept is defined as “a species whose presence and role within an ecosystem has a disproportionate effect on other organisms within the system.”

Often, a keystone species is a top predator. Again and again, we have observed an apex predator disappear from an ecosystem, which results in the proliferation of prey population and can send an entire ecosystem spiraling. We will look at examples of this occurrence later on.

Sometimes keystone species aren’t the most dominant predator, however. There are instances where keystone species are species that do not prey upon other animals but still significantly alter their environment through their life cycle behaviors. Because of this, they impact a broad swath of other organisms.


Ecosystem Engineers

Any species that extensively shapes its physical environment, creating new habitat for other species in the process, is called an ecosystem engineer. Examples include beavers, whose dams form wetlands upstream; American alligators, whose burrows serve as drinking water sources and hiding places for other animals; and coral, whose massive reefs serve as literal bedrock for one of earth’s most diverse ecosystems. Some ecosystem engineers play such an outsized role in the ecological stability and biological diversity of their communities that they are also considered keystone species.
 

Comments

[siliconshaman]

Not all ecosystem engineers are large... solitary bees for example. They burrow into hardened mud banks, breaking it up. Potter wasps, or mud dabbers do the exact opposite, their clay nests act as 'glue' in wood litter an provide a habitat for many creatures once abandoned. (and sometimes even before!)

Yes ...

[ysabetwordsmith]

Ants and termites. The ones that build bigger colonies actually create their own ecosystems inside, with combinations of fungi, spiders, etc. that live nowhere else. Some species are such important seed dispersers that plants pay them by putting little packets of ant food on the outside of seeds so the ants will carry the seeds underground.