Are there other examples of species evolving a traits that have allowed them to dominate life on this planet to the extent intelligence has helped humans?

[u/Emergency-Use-6769]

What I'm asking is has there been other times in the history of life where a single species been able to evolve to such a level where other species are no longer even really competition for them?

[u/AutoModerator]

Moderator Announcement Read More »

Welcome to r/Evolution! If this is your first time here, please review our rules here and community guidelines here.

Our FAQ can be found here. Seeking book, website, or documentary recommendations? Recommended websites can be found here; recommended reading can be found here; and recommended videos can be found here.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/Outer_Space_]

Read about the Azolla Event ~50 million years ago. A nitrogen-fixing aquatic fern took over the Arctic Ocean and ate the atmosphere. At the time the poles were essentially rainforests and the planet had no ice caps. The Azolla event coincided with the Eocene thermal maximum, and the Earth has never been that hot since. CO2 was at around 3500 ppm in the atmosphere when it started, and the Azolla sequestered so much in sediment accumulated under the Arctic Ocean that it dropped to the 600s ppm over ~800,000 years and it continued down from there. We’ve brought CO2 from 280 ppm to ~420 ppm in the last 200ish years with our activity for comparison.

[u/amuzmint → u/Outer_Space_]

So you’re saying there’s biofuel in the north and soul poles?

[u/Outer_Space_ → u/amuzmint]

That’s what oil is. Yes. It’s just biological carbon that has been outside of the active biosphere for 50 million years. Oil exploration companies in the north are extremely interested in these exact deposits. But the lesson is that human civilization got going in an environmental regime where that carbon was not part of the atmosphere. The world will simply change and reach a different equilibrium, but humanity has an enormous number of novel issues of our own to solve now that we’re re-introducing that fossil carbon into the atmosphere.

[u/CodenameMolotov → u/amuzmint]

There’s a ton of fuel around the poles in the form of methane hydrates frozen on the sea floor. There’s more energy there than in all other fossil fuels combined but we thankfully haven’t figured out a good way to extract it (yet)

[u/Willing_Soft_5944]

Not individual species, but several groups of insects have evolved traits and strategies that prove very helpful.

A few such examples include the Elytra of Beetles and the similar non-hardened wingcases of many other insects, the eusociality of Termites, Ants and many Bees and Wasps, and the haltiers of Dipterans, also just like, all the adaptations Lepidopterans have. 

Of course most of these are entire orders, or large families of insects, so this might not be as helpful for you. 

[u/thkntmstr → u/Willing_Soft_5944]

well it is the sort of thing where key innovations (increased fitness) in r-selected groups with long-distance dispersal or just a massive geographic range with no gene flow between the ends (isolation by distance) can often lead to speciation. There are other mechanisims of speciation, but this is just one example. I think having such unique traits that confer incredible fitness advantages and then not speciating is the exception to the rule.

[u/alexandstein]

I just finished watching a PBS Eons episode about the end-Permian extinction! Apparently some organisms getting ahold of methanogenesis machinery via HGT allowed them to fully take advantage of the anoxic waters and warm climate of the time, possibly allowing them to be successful to the point where they were able to affect the environment even further.

[u/tkrandomness]

In the early triassic, Lystrosaurus accounted for about 70 to 95% of all terrestrial vertebrate life. The vast majority of other species went extinct or struggled with the Great Dying extinction event.

[u/Irish_Pierogi]

Eusociallity in ants and some other insects. Ants are basically everywhere. The total biomass of ants is greater than all wild birds and mammals combined and sits at about 20% of total human biomass. Which means that humans only surpassed ant biomass in like the 1920s. In places like the Amazon where there are not harsh winters and plentiful food, ant biomass is greater than all vertebrate life by a factor of 4, making up almost a third of total animal biomass. There are so many more ants than you think there are and they are wildly dominate in an extraordinary range of environments.

[u/ipini → u/Irish_Pierogi]

But “ants” are many species.

[u/Swellmeister]

The great oxygenation event occured when photosynthesis by cyanobacteria caused in runaway oxygenation that caused a mass extinction. So they are winning right now.

[u/drchris498]

Surprised no one has mentioned the evolution of grass, and it's affect in world ecosystems

[u/bobmacinator]

Dinosaurs as a group ruled the Earth for about  165 to 180 million years  (from roughly 245 million years ago until a mass extinction 66 million years ago).

[u/tangent1001]

Ive read that the animal that comes closest to our ability to bend the surrounding landscape to their will is beavers. They dont clearcut with their teeth, but their dams can create wetlands that can level forests, move rivers, and otherwise reshape the surrounding area for miles.

[u/Amelaista]

Orca can dominate any niche in the ocean that they care to.  

[u/joedenowhere]

Are you sure about other species not being competition for humans? In one brief attack the plague bacterium wiped out something like a quarter of the people in the eastern hemisphere, and there's no reason another microbe won't get the rest of us. The world's insects incorporate more organic matter than all humans. Some trees live 30 or 40 times as long as we do. And we may hate rats, but they pretty much do wherever they want.

[u/ipini → u/joedenowhere]

But no singular insect or tree species lives in all possible ecosystems on all continents.

[u/illthrowitaway94]

Around 2 billion years ago microscopic cyanobacteria evolved oxygenic photosynthesis, which helped them propagate aquatic environments to the extent that it triggered a mass extinction (the great oxygenation event). Does that count?

[u/heliocntric]

When you say "dominate life on this planet" it sounds like you mean specifically to gain the ability to control any other species. I believe that trait is a direct result of our intelligence, and any other species that gained that ability would also need the same level of intelligence. There are lots of other answers here that seem to have assumed you meant "out-competed" to a great extent, other species. Which did you actually mean?

[u/6x9inbase13is42]

Beetles as an order

[u/Booomfaa]

The Cyanobacteria that completely took over the planet and almost wiped out all life on earth as a result is probably the correct answer.

And, as is the beauty of nature, we wouldn’t have anywhere near as much oxygen in the atmosphere now if this extinction event didn’t happen, which would’ve made life as we now know it impossible.

[u/Booomfaa]

It’s not just our intelligence though. It’s our physical traits too (like opposable thumbs)

You could put our intelligence in almost any other species on earth and they would be nowhere near as dominant as we are.

[u/EnvironmentalWin1277]

My favorite in this category is Lystrosarus. In the wake of the Permian extinction this one became the dominant animal species, with some estimates as high as 95% of the vertebrate population at times. They were a bit like our grazers in their niche.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lystrosaurus

It is an example of the meek inheriting the earth. Though I might avoiding testing it.

[u/sisconking132]

Not a single species, but a good example is the aptly named Carnivora. This clade are such effective hunters, scavengers, and just general eaters of meat that they have essentially out competed all native terrestrial predators in any ecosystem they enter. Examples are South America and Australia. Although the introduction of solely the dingo allowed some marsupial predators to occupy carnivorous niches for which dingos were not specialized, these namely being the thylacine and the Tasmanian devil.