Human beings have been engineering for a long time. Imhotep, who built the Step Pyramid at Ṣaqqārah, Egypt, around 2550 BCE, is considered one of the first engineers of humankind. In Rome, around the 1st century CE, Vitruvius’s De architectura, a 10-volume work, was published covering extensive engineering knowledge, including building materials, construction methods, hydraulics, measurement, and town planning. While perfecting the cocktail of skill, imagination, and courage, humans have realized their ability to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Panama Canal, to build tunnels beneath the English Channel.

One of the most striking and impressive achievements to me was the successful growth of plants in space using lunar regolith—the loose, fragmented material that covers the Moon’s bedrock. Unlike Earth’s soil, lunar regolith contains no organic matter, no microorganisms, and has no recorded history of supporting life. Another milestone, which coincided with my birthday in 2020, was when astronauts harvested a radish crop aboard the International Space Station. Although the germination of seeds in such a medium was possible only within highly engineered environments created by humans, this very accomplishment reflects the extraordinary scientific and technological capacities of our species.

But what is the meaning of engineering at the very first place and whether the field is limited to the civil issues or construction of structures mere? This question is both conflicting and debatable—and it is the theme of this blog. The word “engine” is derived from the Latin ingenerare, meaning “to create.” The objective of engineering is to solve problems by employing two types of natural resources—materials and energy. The Engineers Council for Professional Development defines engineering as “the creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes—whether used individually or in combination; to construct or operate them with full understanding of their design; or to predict their behaviour under specific operating conditions—all with respect to their intended function, economic efficiency, and the safety of life and property.” Is this skill of transforming resources into utility unique to human beings only?

Ecosystem engineers

Take a family of beavers (Castor canadensis) as an example. They use their teeth as tools, and trees and stones as resources, to build dams. The speed of the stream they seek to block determines the techniques they employ, such as the curvature of the dam. The resulting reservoirs (ponds) created by damming streams have dramatic effects on both pond and stream community structures and ecosystem functioning (Naiman et al., 1988). Two slow-flowing creeks converging on a shallow valley in the southern part of an island off the east coast of North America were once dammed by beavers, transforming the site into a red maple swamp—a habitat fit for wood ducks, green frogs, and brown bullheads, among others (Schilthuizen, 2018). Such engineering marvels are common throughout the northern temperate and boreal regions of North America, prime beaver habitat (Wright et al., 2002). Recently, in the Brdy region of the Czech Republic, beavers managed to fix long-standing dam issues. A project that had been stalled for years due to delays in clearances and permits was suddenly resolved when around eight beavers “took matters into their own paws”—repairing the dam and saving the government nearly a million dollars. Truly, these creatures embody state-of-the-art hydrological engineering skills.

Ecology defines such organisms as ecosystem engineers—species that directly or indirectly alter the availability of resources for others by inducing physical changes in biotic or abiotic materials. In doing so, they modify, maintain, or create habitats (Jones et al., 1994). However, not every species qualifies as an engineer; the role depends on the scale of transformation and the extent to which their modifications provide habitats for other organisms.

At the smallest scale, the world’s second-smallest bat (Tylonycteris pachypus) nests between the nodes of mature bamboo (Gigantochloa scortechinii), entering through beetle-made holes—making the beetles the primary engineers in this system (Yeasmin et al., 2015). Ants likewise transform ecosystems by modifying soil structure and composition, redistributing particles, enriching microsites, and influencing vegetation dynamics (Elmes, 1991). Butterflies, though delicate in appearance, also act as engineers: in the Western Ghats, the disruption of butterfly–habitat interactions has been shown to trigger cascading ecological effects (Pullaiah, 2024). Among mammals, blind mole rats (Spalax ehrenbergi) in Israel excavate large volumes of soil, enhancing aeration and creating distinctive subterranean ecosystems (Heth, 1991). At the largest scale, East African elephants reshape entire landscapes by toppling trees and altering fire regimes, thereby transforming food supplies and the population dynamics of numerous species (Naiman, 1988). Clearly, then, the idea of engineering is not exclusive to humans—although humans were the first to define the term. Many non-human species, too, act as remarkably effective engineers, creating resources for other organisms and driving transformations that ripple across entire landscapes.

The first engineers

Whenever I reflect on how the environment around us came to exist in its present form, I am struck by the fact that humans appeared relatively late in Earth’s history. Long before our arrival, large-scale engineering processes were already being carried out by non-human species. The first engineers on Earth were, in fact, these organisms—shaping soils, altering hydrology, cycling nutrients, and creating habitats that made later forms of life, including our own, possible. They may not have used tools in the human sense, but through evolved behaviours and ecological interactions, they transformed landscapes with remarkable efficiency.

Recognizing non-human species as engineers widens our understanding of what it means to shape the world. While humans have elevated engineering into a conscious discipline, many organisms have long been modifying environments, creating niches, and sustaining ecological balance. To see engineering only through the lens of human ingenuity is to overlook the deeper history of life’s capacity to build, transform, and sustain. Perhaps the true marvel lies not just in what we construct, but in realizing that our own existence rests on the quiet, patient engineering of countless other species before us.

References

Johnson, M. (2019, March 27). *Plant Growth on the International    Space Station has Global Impacts* [Text]. NASA.[http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/b4h-3rd/hh-plant-growth-in-iss-global-impacts]

Pullaiah, T. (Ed.). (2024). Biodiversity hotspot of the Western Ghats and Sri Lanka (First edition). AAP/Apple Academic Press.

Wright, J., Jones, C., & Flecker, A. (2002). An ecosystem engineer, the beaver, increases species richness at the landscape scale. Oecologia, 132, 96–101. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-002-0929-1

Schilthuizen, M. (2018). Darwin comes to town: How the urban jungle drives evolution (First U.S. edition). Picador.

Jones, C. G., Lawton, J. H., & Shachak, M. (1994). Organisms as Ecosystem Engineers. *Oikos*, *69*(3), 373. [https://doi.org/10.2307/3545850](https://doi.org/10.2307/3545850)

Yeasmin, L., Ali, Md. N., Gantait, S., & Chakraborty, S. (2015). Bamboo: An overview on its genetic diversity and characterization. *3 Biotech*, *5*(1), 1–11. [https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-014-0201-5](https://doi.org/10.1007/s13205-014-0201-5)

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