This is a guest post by Beth Campbell, composed as part of the NSF "Science: Becoming the Messenger" workshop in Orono, ME, on April 14-15.
Why should you give a passing thought to the worm? After all, isn’t it just about the most plain, boring animal around? Generally… a small, slimy, pink cylinder without flashy appendages or coloration. Not really a ‘sexy’ representative of the animal kingdom. But what a resume – worms are the critical mass of workers keeping soil and marine sediments in a healthy state. Earthworms and marine worms are engineers. Even with the most basic of nervous systems and stream-like torpedo forms, worms effectively change their habitats. ‘Bioturbation,’ people in the field call it. Mixing of soil and sediment by living things. Sounds basic, but without it, life for other living things on Earth would be very different. Our lab studies a common marine worm – ...
