Whats going to be after us?

The tv show is mostly concerned with the decay of the remaining evidence of our existence. Thinking about who's next gonna be incharge, remember, the top species are still environments senitive. SO Im thinking that its going to be some genus thats got lots of species adapted to many niches . Something like ants, mice, sparrows, and pigs are general enough to adapt to many environments.
Reptiles, IMO are too adated to specific niches too undergo much more evolution. Those guys will just carry on to their own extinction as the environments change around them. There are many multi specied genera of endothermic fishes which could , if left unmolested by humans , evolve into top species for the oceans .

Lemurs have potential for bridging environments, so they deserve some serious betting.

BTW, the tv series, never goes into HOW we did ourselves in. It seems, whatever killed off all the people, didnt affect any of our infrastructure and buildings.
If we managed to blow ourselves up, then the future ecosystems would be more based on Volunteer species.

Interesting questions.

If the past is any indication, then there is likely to be an almost endless cycle of dominant species replaced by new ones as they all go extinct. Unless one of them somehow breaks the cycle (by moving off-planet in a colonizing effort).

Humans are the only species ever to arise on this planet capable of exploiting and dominating virtually every environmental niche. This is primarily due to our extreme adaptability. Our cognitive function and tool-making ability allow us to feed ourselves, cloth ourselves and protect ourselves (build dwellings) almost anywhere. Very few species besides bacteria and beetles can even come close.

So, if humans are removed, then the first forms of dominance would only be dominant within their specific environments. The big cats, bears and wolves would take over their local environments.

If you're trying to speculate on the next pan-global dominant creature, then we have to postulate something which is extremely adaptable and can occupy every environmental niche (temperature extremes, wetness extremes, altitude extremes, drought conditions and ocean environments), and while that type of versatility is possible with pure physical attributes, I think it unlikely. Therefor, I would guess that we need to anticipate a creature with tool-making intelligence and the ability to manipulate objects with dexterity.

Also, it's my opinion that creatures who are too successful with tooth and claw never (or rarely) develop tool making intelligence simply because they are on a different track (the tooth and claw track).

Of the creatures remaining which fit those characteristics, I find octopi and cuttlefish to be the most likely candidates to evolve tool making cognitive abilities similar to ours and to eventually discover technology. So that's my prediction.

If they are sufficiently successful, they don't need to evolve to manipulate their environments, since they will simply follow game animals. To that extent, in local environments, they can be an evolutionary dead-end. There is no evolutionary advantage to learning to manipulate the environment, and if the environment changes to the extent that the game species die off, predators die off.

Precisely my point.