Many animals and plants live life on a knife edge. They are beautifully adapted to their ecological niche; the precise balance of energy, temperature, light and water that has shaped their being over time making them at once exquisitely in tune to their surroundings but at the same time precipitously sensitive to change. Emblems of international conservation remind us of this; the giant panda, in peril because of the slow contraction of their niche as bamboo fields make way f