Life and Planetary Habitability — Working Two Ways?

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It looks like requirements for habitability on extrasolar planets are getting more complicated, even mystical. The planetary habitable zone concept was simple, where water was a must, the right kind of star, proper distance from it, and a few others to make the Goldilocks Zone.

Not only are hopes of finding lucky planets in that zone dimming, there is speculation that for a planet to be able to support life, it must have life. Sounds like the concept is folding in on itself, but it is being considered.

HD 149026b (Smertrios), NASA / JPL-Caltech / T. Pyle (SSC) (usage does not imply endorsement of site contents)
Study on it a spell: Living things have an impact on their environments. (For example, beavers help ecosystems and supposed climate change. Also, creatures under the ground have tremendous effects.) Researchers examined the energy that critters produce, which is significant — and it was from a limited number. Someone wondered if the need for an ecosystem is an argument against abiogenesis. That may very well be the case. Secularists would oppose the idea that the Master Engineer designed creatures and creation to interact to their mutual benefits.
Astrobiologists often speak of a planet’s requirements for life, but can we turn that around? Is life a requirement for a planet’s habitability? A team of geographers from the UK, with help from an ecologist at Montana State University, decided to calculate the energy output of animals. The resulting calculation is astonishing.

Animals, considered as a dynamic factor of the biosphere, contribute a huge amount of energy to landscape changes on the earth — more than some geological processes. The research paper in PNAS by Harvey et al.  explains the significance of their results, with some surprising numbers. This paragraph needs a “wow” emoticon next to it:

For the rest. journey to "Life as a Habitability Requirement."