Reminds me of an old adage I heard in high school: If you take the frogs out of the environment, you don't have the same environment minus frogs, you have an entirely new ecosystem.
A year ago, there was a fascinating episode of "Nature" on PBS about keystone species. It's available for free online streaming here [2].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keystone_species
[2] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/the-serengeti-rules-41dfru/2...
A lot of people seem to think that if you "destroy" an ecosystem it is a step toward a lifeless environment.
Here's some comments: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/333/6049/1547.6