'Earthworm Dilemma,' a new carbon effect

[NickB79]

https://www.avpress.com/opinion/editorial/earthworm-dilemma-a-new-carbon-effect/article_a902fe1c-7f5b-11e9-a2d4-8fd068e43202.html

"Earthworms are yet another factor that can affect the carbon balance,” Werner Kurz, a researcher with the Canadian Forest Service in Victoria, British Columbia, wrote in an email. His fear is that the growing incursion of earthworms, not just in North America, but also in northern Europe and Russia, could convert the boreal forest, now a powerful global carbon sponge, into a carbon spout."

[mopinko]

1. oh come on now. i cant hate on earthworms.

please, no.

[WheelWalker]

2. Fake news. Sad.

[NickB79]

3. Right? Love them in my garden

But apparently they're a non-native invasive species up here

[mopinko]

4. i did know they were invasive.

been meaning to look into that further.
who are the native worms, i wonder. have lots of red wrigglers besides the big earthworms.

[NickB79]

5. Anywhere in the Upper Midwest and Northeast, there are no native worms

They were wiped out by the Ice Age's glacial advances tens of thousands of years ago, and the northern forests evolved without their presence ever since.