We knew there was a problem since decades in fact, the disemination of tropical hammerhead flatworms that predate earthworms and can release the same neurotoxin as fugu fishes (in our potatoes?).
But we shouldn't fall in the temptation of making a mountain from a sand grain. Falling in gross extrapolation for clickbait purposes is as bad as no data. I can be wrong, but it seems that what we have here is an article done in part by volunteers and non professional ecologists (there is a variability in the observers), about a local area and in a narrow date interval.
Would be like to register what I ate the 23-Jan and assume that this is what I will eat for the rest of the year. Earthworm populations can raise and fall as a normal process.
And we should not mistake quantity by quality. I had analysed marine trophic chains and marine annelida appear everywhere. There is a huge biodiversity in sea worms. Huge loads of some species is bad, not good. Means that the ecosystem is in big trouble. With earthworms is the same. Not finding earthworms is not always a problem and finding a lot of them is not always good news.
But we shouldn't fall in the temptation of making a mountain from a sand grain. Falling in gross extrapolation for clickbait purposes is as bad as no data. I can be wrong, but it seems that what we have here is an article done in part by volunteers and non professional ecologists (there is a variability in the observers), about a local area and in a narrow date interval.
Would be like to register what I ate the 23-Jan and assume that this is what I will eat for the rest of the year. Earthworm populations can raise and fall as a normal process.
And we should not mistake quantity by quality. I had analysed marine trophic chains and marine annelida appear everywhere. There is a huge biodiversity in sea worms. Huge loads of some species is bad, not good. Means that the ecosystem is in big trouble. With earthworms is the same. Not finding earthworms is not always a problem and finding a lot of them is not always good news.