Species don't "figure out" anything.
I don't think anyone should make such a blanket statement. We are a long way from having complete answers to questions about animal behaviour, communications, et cetera, and much of what we thought was true is now being refuted with new answers being written constantly.
To quote Dale Peterson from his 2011 book "The Moral Lives of Animals":
"Yes, you are reading about animals and animal behavior. But so much about animals and their ways remains vague, mysterious, unknown; and we are left, so often, looking at animals and what they do through a dark glass, seeing only momentarily the beast emerge, as if on a dark night, before disappearing silently, then quietly emerging once more only to disappear in silence once more. Our knowledge is still limited, in other words, and what we do know about animal behavior is powerfully obscured by long-standing habits of thought."
They will take down the strongest or the swiftest if they can.
I agree that can happen, but it is not the norm. A wolf, or any other predator, will kill any animal that is presented at a disadvantage and that animal may be in its prime. However, the predator typically takes the aged, diseased, very young, et cetera.
The 'weeding out' leaves the largest number of stronger and swifter animals to breed and maintain the numbers that benefit both the predator and prey. That is, in my opinion, a mutually beneficial balance.
That tree makes oxygen not as a service to other organisms, but because that it how its metabolism works. It doesn't know or give a toss about "balance."
I don't understand your point. I didn't suggest the trees had a meeting and decided to support the balance of nature by providing oxygen for those who need it. My point was that the fact of their oxygen generation is key to the survival of many other species, including us.
I would also suggest that various plant forms have their own balanced ecosystems by providing shade, nutrients et cetera for one another. In fact, insects are part of that balance....and any forest provides the examples.
Is something going to happen that will upset that balance? Yup. A perfect example is man mowing down the South American rain forests in order to stick hamburgers in his face.
Sometimes, we choose to save a species on the brink of extinction.
Humans periodically choosing to save "a species" is taking "responsibility for their own actions"?
Perhaps it would be better if humans acted more responsibly in the first place instead of causing the extinctions. We now have an extinction rate far higher than the natural rate (estimates from 1,000 to 10,000 times) and it appears that we are almost wholly responsible.
Whatever the exact figures might be, conservation experts have described the phenomenon as the "sixth great extinction" and we are driving it. I think that supports Jon's original concern.
There is no balance. There is constant change, never-ending struggle, constant extinction, and constant adaptation. It never stops. There is no balance.
At which point I guess we agree to disagree. You don't believe in a balance and I do.....and it doesn't appear either of us is about to change the other's mind. Ironically, I guess that's a kind of balance.
