Major survey finds worms are rare or absent in 20% of fields in England

Re:Major survey finds worms are rare or absent in 20% of fie... by manmal on Monday February 25, 2019 @02:23AM (#19243718)

Yes, insects are also vastly reduced. In my region, there’s an increase in ticks (and tick-borne disease) because there are less insects, leading to less birds, leading to thriving ticks. So, an annoying side effect of reduced insect count is that we have lots of ticks in our gardens.

BTW we have non-organic agricultural fields in 50m distance of our house, so that _might_ be a factor for the dying insects.

Oh, and organic agriculture also uses pesticides. They just use different („natural“) ones.

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Re:Major survey finds worms are rare or absent in 20% of fie... by Cthulhu_ on Monday February 25, 2019 @04:57AM (#19244423)

You'd think there'd also be an uptick (ha!) in animals that eat ticks, but maybe that takes a lot longer to correct itself. If it wasn't for the prevalence of pesticides, insect populations would restore due to a shift in balance - that is, less insects = less predators eating them, less predators = more insects, etc.

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Re:Major survey finds worms are rare or absent in 20% of fie... by manmal on Monday February 25, 2019 @11:27AM (#19246736)

I’m afraid a couple ticks per garden are not enough for any animal to survive..

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