Jumping Worms Are Taking Over North American Forests – The Atlantic

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Jumping Worms Are Taking Over North American Forests – The Atlantic

"They seem so symbolic of a healthy ecosystem,” Dobson says. For their stellar reputation, they can thank none other than Charles Darwin. In addition to developing the theory of evolution, Darwin studied earthworms for 40 years at his home in England.

With characteristic curiosity and rigor, the naturalist conducted all manner of earthworm experiments: He observed their reaction to the sound of the bassoon (none) and to the vibrations of a C note played on the piano (panic). He watched how they pulled leaves into their burrows, and tested their problem-solving skills by offering them small triangles of paper instead (most figured out how to drag them by a corner). Darwin also measured how quickly worms covered up a large paving stone in his garden with their castings. He estimated that they could move at least 10 tons of soil per acre per year.

‘Crazy worms’ have invaded the forests of 15 states, and scientists are worried | Live Science

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‘Crazy worms’ have invaded the forests of 15 states, and scientists are worried | Live Science

Some call them crazy worms. Pick one up, and you'll see why, as the creepy-crawly jerks, writhes and springs out of your hand. (It may even leave its tail behind, as a grim souvenir.) And now, scientists are finding the wrigglers have spread to at least 15 states across the U.S.

The worms of the genus Amynthas — also known as snake worms, Asian jumping worms and Alabama jumpers, according to Smithsonian Magazine — are a highly invasive lot that first made their way to North America in the 19th century, stowed away on ships carrying plants and dirt. Since then, they've spread, well, like crazy, and have now been sighted in more than a dozen states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Ohio, Texas, Louisiana, Indiana, Kansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Oklahoma, Newsweek.com reported.

They resemble common earthworms, only smaller and brownish in color. However, their reputation is far more sinister. Adult crazy worms reproduce quickly and without mates, laying clutches of eggs the same color as the soil, according to Smithsonian. Once they hatch, the worms swiftly devour the nutrients in the topsoil around them, leaving behind a loose, grainy mess that resembles coffee grounds.

This nutrient-depleted soil erodes quickly, leaving little sustenance for native plants, or competing species of worms and fungi, Brad Herrick, an ecologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told PBS Wisconsin.

Invasive “jumping” worms are here to stay – Vox

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Invasive “jumping” worms are here to stay – Vox

Variously known as jumping worms, snake worms, Alabama jumpers, and Jersey wrigglers, common Amynthas species are a super-powered version of the more familiar, squishy languidness of the garden-variety European earthworms (whose genus name, Lumbricus, itself sounds plodding). And their rapid spread into new areas has led to a surge of concern about these worms.

This vigorous lifestyle can quickly lead to full-blown infestations — and decimated topsoil. Perhaps it’s no wonder jumping worms recently have been invading the internet, too.

Creek Channel on Breaker Island

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Most of this Creek Channel is buried, tunneled, or otherwise removed where I-787 comes through and covers much of the former Breaker Island along the Hudson River. Still it was pretty, as the rain stopped.

Taken on Saturday May 7, 2011 at Kayak the Hudson.

I often think per-capita statistics are misleading

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I often think per-capita statistics are misleading …

  1. The bias of averaging. Relatively few people in a community is likely to have an “average” experience to a problem. Often it’s handful of people contributing to the extremes, and even those closer to the middle are likely to have smaller or larger impact the statistic might suggest. Crime might be really bad in neighborhood but other neighborhoods are quite safe.
  2. The bias of noise in rural communities. Any community with a relative small population is likely to be biased by just random chance, and is not reflective of typical events happening on ground. One  random event in a community of 1,000 people is going to look a lot worse on paper then ten random  events in a community of 100,000.
  3. The bias of smoothing out the mean in urban communities. Large urban communities on paper often appear to have lower per-capita emissions or acts of violence. That’s because while there may be some randomness in data, there are just so many more people to smooth out biases in the data causing randomness.
  4. Not recognizing that one community is connected to another. Often a factory, a farm or other rural business can be producing products for an urban community, so emissions that appear on a chart for one community, might actually be attributable to another community through the consumption of their product. For example, you see this with China being the industrial exporter of the world. Or a per-capita crash statistic recorded in a rural area, even though the motorist was passing through between cities and didn’t really impact the local area.
  5. Total emissions or crimes might be within the local community’s ability to manage them. Pollution is after all emissions at a level that cause negative impacts to an environment, at levels that existing ecological services can’t absorb. Likewise, often big cities are better equipped to deal with crime, and while overall crime rates might be higher, the impact is lower to most individuals then we might think due to effective policing.

I think it’s a mistake to use per capita statistics to stigmatize or lay blame on a community. Often problems that raise to the level of community concern involve the entire community, not a single area that is easy to point fingers too, especially if it’s not our own. Dividing a total population into individual heads by math can be misleading and must be used with care. While we all like a colorful map, think about what you seeing in the map, and people it represents before coming to conclusions based on a mathematical model.