QuoteAll species degrade the environment
I don't mean to pick on you Tony P. But I have to say that I learned that is not true last week. I have been into You-Tubes about the ancient past.
I learned some things about insect evolution.
Before insects decay could not keep up with plant growth, and the world swung between snowball earths when ice miles thick covered all land and when land was all backing desert. No decay meant CO2 was depleted and global temperature went below freezing. New volcanic activity then would bring new CO2,and the earth became baking desert until plants cooled things down to make a brief paradise. But the plants could not decay. The cycle repeated. This happened several times.
Insects burrow into plants transferring fungus and bacteria to internal plant parts by their action, greatly increasing decay. Fungi evolved to digest lignin and insects distribute the fungi. Enough so that the planetary system is stabilized.
QuoteSpecific lineages within the basidiomycete fungi, white rot species, have evolved the ability to break up a major structural component of woody plants, lignin.
Keeping the correct amount of CO2 in the air turns out to be a big deal.
Who coulda knowd?