Earthworms of the World

Abstract

For decades, scientists have known where the highest numbers of species that live aboveground are found. So, they made maps of the world showing these patterns. For most of the aboveground groups, the highest numbers of species occur in the tropics and numbers decrease toward the poles. However, until recently, we did not understand such global patterns for many organisms living in the soil. We decided to create global maps of earthworm species richness. Earthworms provide humans with many useful services, such as moving the soils and improving their quality, which can increase the amount of food that is grown. If we want to protect earthworms and the services they provide, these global maps of earthworms are important because we need to understand where they are and why they live there.