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1. What completely threw me off about A is that I do not see why it has to specifically be "ENDANGERED" species instead of really any species. The stimulus never directly says that the soil microorganism etc need to actually be endangered to matter. Is it just implicit?
I feel your pain here. And you're right, the idea that the microorganisms are endangered is implicit.
Think of it this way: imagine Tim and Amy are having an argument. Amy says, "we need to save all the mammals!" And Tim responds, "Why? Nobody cares about wombats!" It's kind of implied that wombats are a kind of mammal, right? Otherwise, his response doesn't make any sense.
Same deal here. We're talking about publicity campaigns for endangered species. If someone responds that it's unlikely to work, because no one's going to care about microorganisms in the soil, it kind of implies that these microorganisms are endangered, right? Otherwise, why bring them up in response to a campaign for endangered species?
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2. Even if i use negation technique on ''A'', i do not see, how it destroys the argument:
The most important environmental problems ''DO NOT'' involve endangered species other than large mammals.
Negation sometimes isn't ideal, as the logic of the answer choice can become more difficult to unravel. So we'd caution you not to be too reliant on it, but here, it does a decent enough job of undermining the argument.
If the most important environmental problems
don't involve endangered species
other than large mammals, it seems to imply that the most important environmental problems involve endangered species that ARE large animals. And if that's the case, well, a campaign that saves endangered large animals is going to have an significant impact, right? So that appears to undermine the argument.
Is it perfect? No. In a vacuum, you're right that the negation could be talking about any number of other things that have nothing to do with endangered species -- soil erosion or melting permafrost or something else. But in the context of an argument specifically about saving endangered species, it's reasonable to assume that's what we're referring to here.
I hope that clears things up!