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Series exploring the complex interface between a growing human population and wildlife

Monty Don presents a series exploring the complex interface between a growing human population and wildlife

Shared Planet: Soil Science

15/10/2013

Soil Science

BBC Radio 4 - Shared Planet, Soil Science

Human population pressure on soils can impact on the earth worm, reducing soil fertility.

Healthy soils are essential for our food and for wildlife. The earth worm is an unlikely wildlife ambassador of millions of other soil life.

Shared Planet explores the link between a growing human population and wildlife and there is no other part of the natural world that is under as much pressure as the earth's soils. We rely on them to grow healthy crops, which they can only do if they support an appropriate community of bacterial, fungal and invertebrate life. Wildlife too depends on this diverse life that thrives in the soil, everything from birds to plants to insects. The earth worm is the surprising champion of soils and an animal that looks vulnerable in the face of human population pressure.

Producer Andrew Dawes.

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