January 08, 2003
Worm Attacks: Invading earthworms threaten rare U.S. fern
That's the title of an article in Science News. Apparently our homeland (yech, what an unamerican word) is under attack by more than al-Qaida. I had no idea until I read the article, but America north of line between Massachusetts to Iowa has no native earthworms (no word on what happens west of there). When I read that, it reminded me of when I went off to school in California and discovered they had no lightning bugs. How can you not have worms? How can you not have lightning bugs? Anyway, some rare fern that requires a lot of leaf litter is being threatened by a particular European earthworm that does an otherwise admirable job of recycling leaf litter. I guess as an exotic European colonist myself, I can't complain too loudly about the worms. What did the early bird eat in Minnesota before the European worms showed up?
Posted by Kevin Murphy at January 8, 2003 12:38 PM | Science
