EcoBloggers

While the Conservatives remain the largest party in the House of Commons, they have fallen short of an overall majority. The Prime Minister, Theresa May, has visited the Queen to request permission to form a government, and has indicated her intention to form a minority administration with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), returned as Northern Ireland’s largest party with ten seats. Mrs May affirmed her intention to provide “certainty”, and to deliver the UK’s departure from the European Union to the existing timetable.

On a night where many expectations were confounded, the Conservatives lost 12 seats to fall 8 short of an overall majority on 318, despite increasing their share of the vote. Labour outperformed many of the polls by gaining 29 seats, ending on 40% of the vote compared to the Conservatives’ 42.4%. In Scotland, the Scottish National Party’s dominance was reduced as they lost 21 seats, while the Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, the DUP and Sinn...

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“Let us beat our swords into ploughshares” is an evocative slogan used by peace builders around the world. However, when it comes to earthworms, ploughs are swords that can kill you and destroy your homes.

We have known for a long time that tillage operations impact large soil macrofauna such as earthworms, directly by mechanical injury and indirectly by destroying their channels and burying surface plant residues. For example, a study from Ireland showed that very intensive soil cultivation for potato production (including grubbing, destoning and ridging) can virtually eliminate earthworm populations. Many such individual studies exist around the world. For the first time, scientists have...