IF BIG biology means sequencing genomes, and big physics is about testing theories in particle accelerators, what does big ecology involve? Answer: tramping around hundreds of muddy fields counting weeds and insects while enduring the wrath of protesters.
For the past four years, critics have queued up to take shots at Britain’s farm-scale evaluation of three genetically modified crops, claiming it was at best a politically motivated irrelevance and at worst downright dangerous. Just about the only thing those for and against the trial could ever agree on was that this was ecological research on an unprecedented scale. But now…
