There Could Be 30,000 Earthworm Species Crawling Across the Globe.

There are likely tens of thousands of species of earthworms crawling in the world’s soils, but it will likely be more than 100 years before scientists discover them.

Earthworms play an important role in recycling organic nutrients in ecosystems. Researchers fear that if they don’t identify all these species, they could go extinct before we even know they exist.

More than 5,700 species and subspecies of earthworms have already been described by scientists. but Thibault Decaen from the University of Montpellier in France noticed the diversity of earthworms while working in the Amazon and wondered if this was an underestimate.

To learn more, Decaens and his team conducted sampling surveys in French Guiana, often flying by helicopter to remote parts of the Amazon rainforest and spending up to two weeks collecting everything they could find in a one-hectare plot. I collected insects.

“In French Guiana, only 55 described species have been recorded,” says Decaëns. “But there are probably at least 2,000 species out there.” The scientists conducted similar sampling in France and found that earthworm diversity must be greater than previously thought. suggested.

In another part of the experiment, they worked with statisticians to estimate the number of undiscovered earthworm species around the world, based on existing records and the rate of new species descriptions.

“Globally, it is estimated that there are at least 30,000 species of earthworms on Earth,” says Decaens. Based on the number of nematode taxonomists in the world and the speed with which they classify specimens, it will take 120 years to identify them all, he says.

“Without basic information about how many species exist and where those species are located, it becomes more difficult to conserve groups of species such as earthworms,” ​​the team members say. Helen Phillips at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

Kaylon Brown Researchers from Britain’s Biological Recording Company say the study highlights how little we know about earthworms. “It is puzzling how we have been so slow to understand such an ecologically important group of animals.”