I realise that many people, on reading that first sentence, will suspect I’ve finally flipped. Where, pray, are those rolling sand dunes or sere stony wastes? But there are many kinds of desert, and not all of them are dry.

No, being dry is really what makes a desert. Deserts can be hot, cold, even seasonally wet, but overall they must have low yearly precipitation.

In fact, those spreading across Britain are clustered in the wettest places.

Obviously, no.

Yet they harbour fewer species than some dry deserts do, and are just as hostile to humans.

Few species and hostile, sure, but these are not defining attributes of desert.

Another useful term is terrestrial dead zones.

Well, it is closer to accuracy.

This twat is using desert figuratively in an article on ecology while chastising readers for thinking that deserts are dry.

Idiot

humans?

I don’t think he knows what the word desert means, or huge, or dead.

No insects in purple moor grass? Sure, if you don’t count butterflies, moths, leafhoppers, beetles, bumblebees, hoverflies, grasshoppers, ants, spiders.