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Comment by andrewclunn | Hacker News Reader

No mention of worms and their importance in healthy soil? Or the impact of pesticides on them?

The northern Midwest has no native worms. They all died in the last ice age. It’s all insect and microbe decay. Imported worms are slowly changing what trees can grow. The seedlings are adapted to life in a thick duff layer that the worms eat.

As someone who was 110% pro-worm this was a bitter pill to swallow, but yeah, my beloved compost worms (Eisenia foetida) are a "non-native invasive" species.[1] "And so it goes."

I wonder about the ecological equilibrium that might obtain in a thousand years...

[1] "Eisenia fetida worms are native to Europe, but have been introduced (both intentionally and unintentionally) to every other continent except Antarctica." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenia_fetida

I moved so that solved the problem, but the common wisdom does seem to be that Eisenia foetida colonies rarely survive more than a couple years, since they don't burrow far and they aren't cold adapted. If you have to pick a worm, that certainly beats nightcrawlers by a mile.

I'm told that they think most incursions are caused by fishing expeditions where the fisherman releases the worms at the end of the day, rather than carting them back home. You can track the progress outward in a circle, not unlike fungal fairy rings.

In a pinch you can start an Eisenia foetida worm bin by calling all of the bait shops to see who can sell you a large container of them. So clearly they're an option for fisherman.

It's not just worms. We're lucky to have excellent soil in our backyard and it's absolutely crawling with millipedes, isopods, and springtails.

I have a vermicompost bin in my kitchen, I'm in awe whenever I open it at just how many bugs there are in there just doin' their thing, and it's all self contained. The only "pest" I've had has been ants entering the bin and stealing food. Once I wrapped some double sided tape on the legs, that cleared up that. Even my wife likes 'em.

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