[m-i-l]

The dramatic reduction in insects on car windscreens could be "explained away" by technological advances in car design (getting windscreens covered in insects could conceivably have been a problem great enough for someone to have invested time and money into resolving with more efficient aerodynamics of windscreens or whatever). Not saying that is actually the cause, just that many people could rationalise it as such.

The earthworms on a path or road is slightly more troubling though. Not something I'd thought about before, but there is a path through a park where I grew up that used to be covered in earthworms after every rain when I was a child, but the odd times I've been back up since in similar conditions I've not noticed any at all. Being a park it wouldn't have been exposed to more intensive farming or anything else. Same park, just a different time.

Chilling thought that there could be significant and detrimental changes underway in nature, happening on generational timescales so slowly that no-one notices, a little like the proverbial frog in boiling water.

[Rotareti]

> The dramatic reduction in insects on car windscreens could be "explained away" by technological advances in car design

I have been driving the same car for 20 years with the same roof-rack. 20 years ago the roof-rack was crusted with insects after each trip on the autobahn. I had to clean them off with a bucket of water and a sponge after each trip. I remember this because it was a standard routine. These days, when I come back from a trip, there is nothing. I haven't cleaned the rack for years.

[wnkrshm]

With the introduction of LED lighting and lighting becoming cheaper with it, the amount of artificial light at night has increased over the last decades and may be contributing to declining insect populations as has been noted in the UK and Germany.