Ecosystems are not exactly stable systems. You don't need sentience to cause imbalance and breakdown - https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophi

Ecosystems are not exactly stable systems. You don't need sentience to cause imbalance and breakdown - https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophic-cascades-across-diverse-plant-ecosystems-80060347/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/trophic-ca... Sentience is like anything else. Just a tool to that makes the species efficient at doing X. When a herd of buffalo gets slightly too efficient at grazing or a a pride of lions gets slightly too efficient at taking down prey things can unravel. But after the breakdowns and collapses the big mystery is why things reboot.