Any gardener worth their salt will know that earthworms are fantastic in aiding compost quality improvement.
But what wasn't understood was exactly how hardy the slimy little creatures were. A new study by scientists at Colorado State University puts this quandry to bed and shows just how resistant to drought conditions the annelid is.
Researchers at the US institution wanted to find out just how well earthworms responded to extensive periods without rain and the results surprised everyone.
While there had been some doubts as to whether the animals would be able to survive spells of up to three weeks without any water, scientists discovered that the annelids curl themselves up into a tightly wound knot and this stops any moisture from leaving their bodies. Clever, eh!
This might seem quite a trivial discovery at first, but farmers in drier areas will now be keen to add earthworms to their soil so that the development of fertile earth can be aided naturally without additives and growing supplements.
However, commenting on the amazing discovery, Jacob McDaniel, lead author of the study, said that further research is needed before too many agriculturalists start chucking earthworms all over their crops.
"Future work needs to be done in the field setting with actual droughts instead of set time periods … the stress in the [laboratory plant] pots could be very different than what we would see in the field," he added.
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