What if a key factor ultimately behind a cancer was not a genetic defect but ecological? Ecologists have long known that when some major change disturbs an environment in some way, ecosystem structure is likely to change dramatically. Further, this shift in interconnected species’ diversity, abundances, and relationships can in turn have a transforming effect on health of the whole landscape -- causing a rich woodland or grassland to become permanently degraded, for example -- as the ecosystem becomes unstable and then breaks down the environment.
