Written by Emma Sherlock, Chairman of the Earthworm Society
(Image copyright of Emma)
The Earthworm Society of Britain started life in October 2009 with funding from OPAL. Whilst promoting what vital and wonderful creatures earthworms are to the public we are primarily a recording society and the last 5 years have been spent developing and then running identification courses to encourage interested parties to become earthworm recorders for the society.
There are 27 earthworm species living in the UK, outside of artificial environments such as hot houses. However, very little is known of their distribution and abundance. Even for the most common earthworm species we have little ecological data and at the time of our launch there was not a single county recorder of earthworms in the UK. In fact one species (D. pygmaea) hasn’t been recorded for over a decade; this may be because it has specific habitat requirements, is actually now extinct in the UK or we need a new collection method for this particular species. The truth is we don’t know. One thing we do know though is that before we can make many generalisations of how populations are being affected by various events, we desperately need baseline data of what is being found and where.
A paper produced in 2012 mapping the earthworm species in the UK from known data for the first time had maps which in a lot of cases where almost blank. Vast swathes of the country appear unexplored. For such an important animal group this is extremely worrying.
Our courses are free of charge for members (membership of the society is £5 per year for an adult) and we cover the collection and preservation methods needed for earthworm recording in the course, generally all in one day. We have worked hard at making earthworm identification easy, teaming up with the Field Studies Council to produce a new AIDGAP key. We also have a Facebook page where you can keep up to date with what’s happening in the world of earthworms, but you can also get useful tips and information on collection guidelines and our events. This information is also on our website.
Please do look us up if you would like to get involved and start filling in some of the blanks and help us get a grip on British earthworms.
The data currently on the NBN Gateway can be seen here