The results of a major 4-year catchment-scale research project in Leicestershire that was supported by Heritage Lottery Funding has revealed that 40 per cent of farmers involved in the study now recognise the signs of climate change and are ready to respond.
Dr Chris Stoate, Head of Research at the GWCT’s Allerton Project farm, explains, “Our research shows that farmers can make a huge difference in helping to mitigate the effects of climate change. When fields are not ploughed the soil condition is improved naturally by the tunnelling of earthworms, which absorb water at a rate of four to ten times that of fields without worm tunnels. This in turn helps the soil to take up water during storms and retain it during drought. It also helped to buffer our stream from flooding during heavy rain.”
The study, which was carried out by researchers from the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust, on its research farm at Loddington and in the surrounding catchment, is developing techniques that can mitigate the effects of both drought conditions and flooding that have an impact on the wider public as well as farmers themselves.
One of the key recommendations for farmers is to cut back on traditional ploughing in favour of minimum tillage in order to harness the natural army of eco-friendly microbes and earthworms that inhabit the soil. This improves the capacity of the soil to take up water during storms and retain it during drought.
The study, which involved the whole stream catchment surrounding the GWCT’s Allerton Project farm, also discovered other impacts that climate change could have on farming and wildlife as well as on a household level. It even suggested that it might mean taking on board some approaches from the past. The study revealed, for example, the way in which we all take clean water for granted and that potentially the concept of a ‘water footprint’ could be used positively to make consumers more aware of their demand on water resources.
Dr Stoate explains, “In the 1930s each person used about 15 litres of water per day. Today, we each use about 150 litres of water per day. Each litre of water consumed amounts to about 55kg of CO2 per person over the course of the year. Large additional amounts of water are used to produce food and other goods in this country and abroad, and the concept of a water footprint as a basis for a labelling system, was met positively by people living in the catchment that were involved in our study. This was mainly as it raised awareness about water consumption and the threat that this posed.”
Government farming Minister, Jim Paice, MP, in a personal tribute to this study said, “The Defra Business Plan recognises that the environment is the natural foundation on which our society and economy are built and that our long-term prosperity, economic success and quality of life are enhanced by our environment. As this study highlights, if we use and manage our natural assets in a sustainable way they will continue to meet not only our needs such as for energy, sustenance, fresh water and fertile soils, but the needs of future generation.”
A recently published book arising from the study titled Exploring a Productive Landscape, describes this wide ranging research project that has involved the GWCT’s wildlife-friendly research farm as well as the local catchment community. The research underlines the huge demands that are now being made on our countryside to provide food, water and fuel in the light of a growing population as well as the increasing threat posed by climate change and the depletion of our natural resources. It also highlights much of the significant research that has been carried out by the Trust on the farm over the past 20 years in an effort to boost wildlife populations while increasing crop yields. It offers positive solutions to many of the threats and challenges that we face over the coming years.
The full results of this fascinating study are available through the Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust for £10.00 at www.gwct.org.uk/eyebrookbook. Proceeds will be used to continue to develop this catchment community project.
http://www.gwct.org.uk/about_us/news/3270.asp
Showing posts with label earthworms. Show all posts
Showing posts with label earthworms. Show all posts
Friday, August 19, 2011
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Worm charming festival fails to catch a single specimen
Crowds who attended a worm charming festival were left disappointed after contestants failed to tempt a single creature out of the ground.
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 8:30AM BST 07 Aug 2010
Dozens of competitors converged on a field in Lincolnshire for the sport which involves trying to lure as many worms as possible out of the earth within a 30-minute period.
But while the world record stands at 567, not one of the entrants at the Woodhall Worm Charming Festival managed to persuade a single invertebrate to vacate its underground lair.
The dismal performance was not matched by the enthusiasm of those taking part. While many traditionalists used the tried and tested method of “twanging” – whereby a four-pronged garden fork is inserted into the ground and vibrated by hand – others played instruments and experimented with homemade contraptions.
One contestant repeatedly honked his patch of grass with a vuvuzela, while another wheeled a spiked roller called “the worminator” across the ground. One team even used an electric back massager to coax out their prey.
At the close of the contest, one entrant said: “I feel wormthless.” Another added: “No worms, but we think they were just under the surface.”
With no clear winner, organisers were forced to modify the judging criteria and awarded the trophy to Team Green for being the Most Enthusiastic Charmers of the event.
The dire result follows the World Worm Charming Championships in Nantwich, Cheshire, earlier this summer which regularly sees entrants luring hundreds of creatures to the surface.
Event organiser Toni Franck said: “I can’t believe it because in Cheshire, even in their worst year, the winner took 40 worms – the best was more than 500. But we didn’t see a single worm here.”
Rules stipulate that contestants are not allowed to use water or dig worms out of the ground.
The event raised more than £200 for the Woodhall Spa Twinning Association.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7931029/PLEASE-PIC-AND-PUBLISH-Worm-charming-festival-fails-to-catch-a-single-specimen.html
By Murray Wardrop
Published: 8:30AM BST 07 Aug 2010
Dozens of competitors converged on a field in Lincolnshire for the sport which involves trying to lure as many worms as possible out of the earth within a 30-minute period.
But while the world record stands at 567, not one of the entrants at the Woodhall Worm Charming Festival managed to persuade a single invertebrate to vacate its underground lair.
The dismal performance was not matched by the enthusiasm of those taking part. While many traditionalists used the tried and tested method of “twanging” – whereby a four-pronged garden fork is inserted into the ground and vibrated by hand – others played instruments and experimented with homemade contraptions.
One contestant repeatedly honked his patch of grass with a vuvuzela, while another wheeled a spiked roller called “the worminator” across the ground. One team even used an electric back massager to coax out their prey.
At the close of the contest, one entrant said: “I feel wormthless.” Another added: “No worms, but we think they were just under the surface.”
With no clear winner, organisers were forced to modify the judging criteria and awarded the trophy to Team Green for being the Most Enthusiastic Charmers of the event.
The dire result follows the World Worm Charming Championships in Nantwich, Cheshire, earlier this summer which regularly sees entrants luring hundreds of creatures to the surface.
Event organiser Toni Franck said: “I can’t believe it because in Cheshire, even in their worst year, the winner took 40 worms – the best was more than 500. But we didn’t see a single worm here.”
Rules stipulate that contestants are not allowed to use water or dig worms out of the ground.
The event raised more than £200 for the Woodhall Spa Twinning Association.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/7931029/PLEASE-PIC-AND-PUBLISH-Worm-charming-festival-fails-to-catch-a-single-specimen.html
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Earthworms form herds and make "group decisions"
The earthworms use touch to communicate and influence each other's behaviour, according to research published in the journal Ethology.
By doing so the worms collectively decide to travel in the same direction as part of a single herd.
The striking behaviour, found in the earthworm Eisenia fetida, is the first time that any type of worm, or annelid, has been shown to form active herds.
"Our results modify the current view that earthworms are animals lacking in social behaviour," says Ms Lara Zirbes, a PhD student at the University of Liege in Gembloux in Belgium.
"We can consider the earthworm behaviour as equivalent the of a herd or swarm."
Ms Zirbes and colleagues were originally interested in how earthworms interact with other microorganisms in the soil.
These interactions are part of the important ecological role of that earthworms play.
However, the researchers began to notice that the earthworms seemed also to interact with each other.
"In experiments, I noticed that earthworms frequently clustered and formed a compact patch when they were out of the soil," Ms Zirbes told the BBC.
Follow the leader
So Ms Zirbes and her colleagues set up a series of experiments to test how earthworms decided where to go, and whether they preferred to travel alone or in groups.
They chose the earthworm Eisenia fetida, which tends to live near or at the soil surface, typically within the litter lining forest floors.
First, they placed 40 earthworms into a central chamber, from which extended two identical arms.
The idea was to leave the animals alone, and then to see how many earthworms moved to either arm over a 24-hour period.
Over 30 identical repeats of the trial, the worms preferred to group within one chamber over the other.
"We noted that earthworms moving out of the central chamber influenced the directional choice of other earthworms.
"So our hypothesis was confirmed: a social cue influences earthworm behaviour," says Ms Zirbes.
Touching moments
A second experiment tested how the worms affected each other's behaviour, investigating whether the worms use either chemical signals or touch to decide which chamber to move to.
The researchers placed one worm at the start of a soil-filled maze, with two routes to a food source at the end.
After the worm chose its route to the food, the researchers added a second worm to see if it followed the same route as the first.
However, after repeated trials, the second worms were no more likely to take the same route as their predecessors. This indicated that the worms did not leave a chemical trail behind them that communicated their direction of travel.
Yet if two worms were placed together at the start of the maze, they were more likely to follow one another, suggesting that they used touch to communicate where they were going.
In two-thirds of these trials, the worms followed each other.
"I have observed contact between two earthworms. Sometimes they just cross their bodies and sometimes they maximise contact. Out of soil, earthworms can form balls," says Ms Zirbes.
A modelling study then showed that, by using touch alone, up to 40 earthworms could follow each other in a similar way, explaining how herds of the animals preferred to move together into one chamber in the initial experiments.
"To our knowledge this is the first example of collective orientation in animals based on contact between followers," the researchers wrote in the journal.
"It is also the first one of collective movements of annelids."
Defensive posture
The researchers suspect that other earthworm species may behave in a similar way. They now hope to investigate why the animals come together to form herds.
One reason may be that clustering helps the worms protect themselves.
Individual Eisenia fetida earthworms secrete proteins and fluids which have antibacterial properties, potentially deterring soil pathogens.
They also secrete a yellow fluid to deter predatory flatworms.
Gathering into groups may increase the amount of fluids covering the earthworms and hence better protect individuals, the researchers say.
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm
By doing so the worms collectively decide to travel in the same direction as part of a single herd.
The striking behaviour, found in the earthworm Eisenia fetida, is the first time that any type of worm, or annelid, has been shown to form active herds.
"Our results modify the current view that earthworms are animals lacking in social behaviour," says Ms Lara Zirbes, a PhD student at the University of Liege in Gembloux in Belgium.
"We can consider the earthworm behaviour as equivalent the of a herd or swarm."
Ms Zirbes and colleagues were originally interested in how earthworms interact with other microorganisms in the soil.
These interactions are part of the important ecological role of that earthworms play.
However, the researchers began to notice that the earthworms seemed also to interact with each other.
"In experiments, I noticed that earthworms frequently clustered and formed a compact patch when they were out of the soil," Ms Zirbes told the BBC.
Follow the leader
So Ms Zirbes and her colleagues set up a series of experiments to test how earthworms decided where to go, and whether they preferred to travel alone or in groups.
They chose the earthworm Eisenia fetida, which tends to live near or at the soil surface, typically within the litter lining forest floors.
First, they placed 40 earthworms into a central chamber, from which extended two identical arms.
The idea was to leave the animals alone, and then to see how many earthworms moved to either arm over a 24-hour period.
Over 30 identical repeats of the trial, the worms preferred to group within one chamber over the other.
"We noted that earthworms moving out of the central chamber influenced the directional choice of other earthworms.
"So our hypothesis was confirmed: a social cue influences earthworm behaviour," says Ms Zirbes.
Touching moments
A second experiment tested how the worms affected each other's behaviour, investigating whether the worms use either chemical signals or touch to decide which chamber to move to.
The researchers placed one worm at the start of a soil-filled maze, with two routes to a food source at the end.
After the worm chose its route to the food, the researchers added a second worm to see if it followed the same route as the first.
However, after repeated trials, the second worms were no more likely to take the same route as their predecessors. This indicated that the worms did not leave a chemical trail behind them that communicated their direction of travel.
Yet if two worms were placed together at the start of the maze, they were more likely to follow one another, suggesting that they used touch to communicate where they were going.
In two-thirds of these trials, the worms followed each other.
"I have observed contact between two earthworms. Sometimes they just cross their bodies and sometimes they maximise contact. Out of soil, earthworms can form balls," says Ms Zirbes.
A modelling study then showed that, by using touch alone, up to 40 earthworms could follow each other in a similar way, explaining how herds of the animals preferred to move together into one chamber in the initial experiments.
"To our knowledge this is the first example of collective orientation in animals based on contact between followers," the researchers wrote in the journal.
"It is also the first one of collective movements of annelids."
Defensive posture
The researchers suspect that other earthworm species may behave in a similar way. They now hope to investigate why the animals come together to form herds.
One reason may be that clustering helps the worms protect themselves.
Individual Eisenia fetida earthworms secrete proteins and fluids which have antibacterial properties, potentially deterring soil pathogens.
They also secrete a yellow fluid to deter predatory flatworms.
Gathering into groups may increase the amount of fluids covering the earthworms and hence better protect individuals, the researchers say.
By Matt Walker
Editor, Earth News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8604000/8604584.stm
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Worm causes computer crash
A Somerset man suspected a worm virus when his computer crashed - but was shocked to learn the problem was a real wom.
Mark Taylor called out an IT repairmen who found a five inch earthworm inside his laptop, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It had crawled into his computer through an air vent and wrapped itself around the internal fan, leading to a total breakdown.
Mr Taylor, 45, suspects the culprits were his two cats who are in the habit of pouncing on earthworms outside and bringing them into the house.
Mr Taylor, from Yeovil, said: "The worm was obviously looking for a hiding place and must have crawled in through the air vent to get away from the cats.
"I couldn't help thinking that people get computer worms all the time, but not real life ones."
Computer technician Sam Robinson, 28, who discovered the worm said: "I took the back off and had a look inside. Then I spotted what at first I thought was some sort of hair band or elastic band wrapped around the fan.
"I soon discovered that it was a worm which had been burned to a frazzle. It had obviously wrapped around the fan when somebody had turned on the computer and caused the breakdown due to the fan jamming.
"Needless to say I hadn't come across a problem like this before but was happy to sort it out for Mark."
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3213603.html?menu=news.quirkies
Mark Taylor called out an IT repairmen who found a five inch earthworm inside his laptop, reports the Daily Telegraph.
It had crawled into his computer through an air vent and wrapped itself around the internal fan, leading to a total breakdown.
Mr Taylor, 45, suspects the culprits were his two cats who are in the habit of pouncing on earthworms outside and bringing them into the house.
Mr Taylor, from Yeovil, said: "The worm was obviously looking for a hiding place and must have crawled in through the air vent to get away from the cats.
"I couldn't help thinking that people get computer worms all the time, but not real life ones."
Computer technician Sam Robinson, 28, who discovered the worm said: "I took the back off and had a look inside. Then I spotted what at first I thought was some sort of hair band or elastic band wrapped around the fan.
"I soon discovered that it was a worm which had been burned to a frazzle. It had obviously wrapped around the fan when somebody had turned on the computer and caused the breakdown due to the fan jamming.
"Needless to say I hadn't come across a problem like this before but was happy to sort it out for Mark."
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_3213603.html?menu=news.quirkies
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