Respected Madam,

             Your view is associated with humanity. However, not all the peoples think in that way. Due to inadequate knowledge about the biota, which is associated with human life related interactions. Number of plants and animal species are continuously getting harmed. However, in some countries like my  own country India, we believe these tiny creatures  as Gods faces. So in number of areas of our country we treat them as a part and parcel of the community and nature and give them great respect. So it completely dependent on the persons mentality and his religious belief that how to interacts with other creatures like ants, termites, honey bee, wasps etc. 

Dear Marcel,

The argument that you propose is larger than the speculations about the universe. This is an important and complex issue, but for me, that I am not a philosopher, simple too. You may also add to your list the plants that we have seen have complex forms of responsiveness to "higher?" forms of stimulation (positive and negative). The man in its history has always been compared to other living organisms (other men, domesticated and wild animals, plants, etc.) based on the interests of the group, the tribe etc. looking (outside situations of conflict or emergency) a balance that does not lead to a collapse of the system (in this respect also the ecological collapse of Rapanui seems not to be true). To do this he did many things, but I like to emphasize two: He has ritualized the relationship with other living organisms (the religious prohibition on pork in Jewish and Islamic religions to get rid of an omnivore direct competitor with the man in use of resources) and made some "contracts" with other living organisms (man-man, man-domesticated animals etc.). Looking at our farmers until a few years ago, they bred with the best care, they were capable, pets sacrificing them in a context, that even if mediated by money, was still barter (even in this religion interfered with animal sacrifices evolution of human sacrifice).

What seems to happen in recent years is the complete separation between breeding, cultivation of plants, microorganisms in the soil that interact with the lives of many, and the daily lives of most of the world's population.

The industrialized relationship with living organisms did lose awareness of other lives (the amburgher grow on trees); led to forms of intensive farming with brutal treatment of animals, soil sterilization of many living organisms (massive use of herbicides) etc. Here come the religions, ancient (as recalled by Sanindhar) and modern in the form of vaguely New Age movements.

There are many debates about the (GMO in agriculture, industrialized farming etc.) on the effectiveness of new technologies to improve the life of man (It certainly has improved the lives of more access to food).

But regardless anthropocentrism seems to me quite clear that this new situation is leading to the destruction of our planet (and here also enters the inorganic component) for exhaustion but especially for the largest decline of biodiversity resource for the evolution of living organisms including humans (disappearance of bacteria and micro-elements, animals and plants that are able to adapt to different environments etc.). In the end a loss of awareness of all this; if not mediated by ideologies and religions. A consciously delicate relationship with the world (animals, bacteria, plants, soil) should lead us to avoid any destructive practice against everything.

When this is not possible, and we have to kill the mosquitoes, we must do without complacency and in the knowledge of what we are doing. Aware that we do know what this means from a pragmatic point of view; but also aware that we are living organisms among other living organisms and that we know little about their suffering, rejoice etc. At worst, we should give them the dignity of an enemy.

(Regarding the male phenotype and religions I believe is born of tribal organizational needs and then ritualised form to support political power).

A consciously delicate relationship with the world (animals, bacteria, plants, soil) should lead us to avoid any destructive practice against everything.

Yes indeed. Mutual respect

It seems to me that the question is related to "natural selection" considered from the individual standpoint. One can think as you suggest :"ants not foraging at the moment of cleaning are just lucky"; But what does lucky means? The world is multiparametric and the "luck " in that case is not that of a game of dice such as in a microcanonical statistical ensemble. But to get some correlations it is manadatory to have a physical interaction that can act in a long range way but has to be existing. And then comes the timing of the propagation of this interaction that fits or not fits with the lucky or un lucky ants reactions. When the time involved is smaller than the reaction time of the ants it is just a question of  "luck" when the reaction time of the ant is shorter they can manage a more efficient response to the environnement.

So it seems to me that the point is to study the time scales that separate  apparent luck from apparent actions  or apparent "will" and then the underlying phisical interaction can be somewhat deduced.

But these remark do not really give an answer to the very question.

Even when living beings have mutual respect, conscious or unconscious living also implies physical destruction. You construct (e.g. buildings replace habitat from other living beings), you move (roads replace vegetation), you clean (soap removes millions of micro-organisms) ......

Perhaps a more constructive way of expression is:

Even when living beings have mutual respect, conscious or unconscious living also implies physical change/transformation. You construct (e.g. buildings replace habitat from other living beings), you move (roads replace vegetation), you clean (soap replaces  millions of micro-organisms) ......

Destruction as interpretation becomes change/transformation as observation?

Being lucky is an interpretation. Is luck determined by what will happen after the ant's physical change/transformation after the removal of the terrace?

How important is unconscious behavior in the extinction of living beings?

Example:

One human body harboring billions of living beings (e.g. micro-organisms) might cause mass extinction of living beings on the human body via human cleaning behavior or the movement of one hand touching a substrate, e.g. a tool, simply because the human is not aware these micro-organisms exist.

Your remark is true and rises the parent question : that place beiing free, how much other living being will take profit of it?

Perhaps not only how much, but also which, living beings will take profit of it?

This have the flovor of the famous "equipartition principle" in physics where there is an assumed rule that the phase space has to be filled up, invocating the postulate of molecular chaos. In real life the situation has to be corrected by the interactions and the baths that are acting on the system. These rules in physics (not to say law) have been found in the same period of time as was postulated natural selction. Your question is related to the present status of these laws. We work with them, but we do not understand the mechanism that makes them effective.

Dear Marcel,

There are so many local phenomena on wildlife that I had to write several books about it. Please try to specify your question!

My wife and I have different views of ants, especially the ones foraging in our kitchen ! She would like to get out the insecticide and I try find the food source they are after. I remove the food source and the ants "dissapear".For my wife, ants are a pest and to me, a pointer to where there's some food lying around. 

I suppose in a way I share your sentiment about preserving the individuals of an ant colony. 

Personally I would think we often do not take note of the ants, because in the pine-needle setting, they are probably invisible. Perhaps one should educate others about the importance of ants, so that they will be more aware. It may not make a large difference, however, for the individuals that won't get washed away, it's important.

For the ants that does get washed away, I'd say it was just bad luck. For super organisms such as ant colonies, the individual is not important though - they will gladly sacrifice their life for the colony as the loss of an individual has no effect on the survival of the colony, except maybe the queen.

Concerning ethics, feelings are consciously perceived at the individual level, or not? Why then pay humans especially attention to the level of the population rather than the level of the individual in wildlife conservation studies?