PLEASE HELP! before paine recalled that a year after the starfish had been removed the number of species that decreased from 15 to 8 after three years the number went down to 7 and after another seven years it was almost all only mussels in the control plots the number and diversity of species was basically unchanged which statement best explains these results? |. keystone species are critical to the diversity and stability of an ecosystem ||. when a predator is removed the prey of the predator always increases and species not eaten by the predator always decrease |||. the disappearance of producers from an ecosystem can cause the number of predators to increase