Worms Can Survive a Drought. Can You?

Overview

Objectives/Goals Due to the current drought conditions in California I wanted to see what the effects were on worms. Methods/Materials I made 15 individual worm environments. Five environments had a worm population living under normal soil conditions, five environments had a worm population where the moisture level fluctuated from normal to dry and five environments had worms living under drought conditions. I measured and recorded the moisture level every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Every 21 days I examined each individual environment and took a census of the worm population. I repeated this process three times for a total of 63 days. Results Under drought conditions worms secrete a mucous membrane around themselves and go into a state of estivation, similar to what animals do in hibernation. By building the mucus membrane around themselves, they create a moist protective coating that allows the worms to survive drought conditions. The worm mortality rate under normal conditions was 0% all 125 worms survived. The worm mortality rate under the normal to wet conditions was 0% all 125 worms survived. The worm mortality rate under drought conditions was 12.8% over the 63 days leaving 109 worms surviving the drought conditions. Conclusions/Discussion The experiment proved my hypothesis true. Worms can survive a drought. With California experiencing its fifth straight year of drought conditions this is vital information. Soil with a worm population absorbs more water and decreases water runoff. This is vital to Earth's environment by benefiting the fauna and flora of the planet.

Competition history

• CSEF 2016 Zoology · Entry J2210

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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