Earthworms Importance to Life as we know it

[Montero]

Earthworms are more important than pandas (if you want to save the planet)

We focus on large, charismatic animals at the expense of these crucial ‘lowly creatures’.

theconversation.com

 

[BAYLOR]

Some of them can get quite large . There is a species in Australia that grow to 10 feet long.

 

[Montero]

Goodness me. Australia does like to be a bit different, doesn't it?

 

[Yozh]

Depends on where you live, though. Here in the Great Lakes region of North America, earthworms are an invasive species. The forest floor ecology evolved without them. The newly arrived "jumping worms" are seen as particularly problematic b/c they devour the leaf litter that other organisms rely on.

Minnesota DNR on jumping worms

 

[Extollager]

Interesting, Yozh. In general I have had the rule of thumb that one's soil is good if it has plenty of earthworms and grows things that attract plenty of bees.

 

[KGeo777]

I think it's funny that the expression "lowly worm" is used but they are essential for the creation of soil.
They are MVPs of earth creatures when you look at it from stewardship.
It makes me laugh when someone (usually a hunter) says humans are stewards of Nature.
Yeah sure they are.

The play is the tragedy Man,
and its hero, the conqueror worm.

 

[Extollager]

KGeo77, in my understanding, humans are indeed the stewards of nature. We can't not be. We can exercise that stewardship wisely or not, but even the decision to leave some region untouched by us (as we hope) is a stewardship decision. By "stewardship" I mean that our species alone shows evidence of being able, indeed compelled, to think about the future, to think about purposes and values. It may be that plants and animals may be said to live instinctively "in harmony with nature," though that's a concept that might need examination. But we do not instinctively live in harmony with anything, so far as I know, including, to begin with, the competing claims within us, our irreconcilable desires. That's not a problem with animals or plants.

 

[Yozh]

We do love them in gardens here too, just try to keep them out of the wild.

 

[Yozh]

Interesting, Yozh. In general I have had the rule of thumb that one's soil is good if it has plenty of earthworms and grows things that attract plenty of bees.

We love them in vegetable gardens here too, just not out in the wild!

 

[Robert Zwilling]

Worms like anything else on this planet can do amazing damage by simply being in the wrong place. In some places the jumping worms are taking down forest eco systems by causing the decline of native plants, soil invertebrates, salamanders, birds and other animals. The job of the jumping worms job is to eat as much leaf debris as possible everyday. They do this because if they didn't eat everything in sight, the ground would get covered up deep in dead vegetation. Their job is to get rid of dead vegetation. This is good practice in a jungle. In a regular deciduous forest, this prevents the normal process of changing the debris into good soil which has far reaching consequences.

One of the ways the jumping worms were distributed around the country was their sale as fish bait. They were unusually active which made them a desirable product. Wherever they were used some of the worms were dumped out on the ground at the end of the day by fisherman who no longer needed them.

Another way the jumping worms were unintentionally promoted by people was by landscapers who continually dump mulch in gardens and around trees and bushes without taking away the old mulch first. This raises the mulch level above the ground level which creates a very desirable environment for the jumping worms. Apparently they don't like dirt.

European earthworms leave behind high nutrient castings that are great for garden fertilizer. Their castings look like fresh dirt in small clumps. Jumping worms do not offer the same support in the garden. Their castings are left near the surface and often wash away or erode. Jumping worm castings look and feel like coffee grounds. This is good for adding grittiness and aeration to extremely moist, dense, organic material. It is not good for the production of humus.

Even regular earthworms can negatively impact a forest ecosystem that has never had earthworms in it before.

 

[BAYLOR]

We do love them in gardens here too, just try to keep them out of the wild.

They're fairly hard to contain.

 

[BAYLOR]

Goodness me. Australia does like to be a bit different, doesn't it?

In 1967 in South Africa m they found earthworm that measured 21 feet long.