articleScienceOct 24, 2019GOLD OA

Global distribution of earthworm diversity

HRHelen R. P. PhillipsCACarlos A. GuerraMLMarie Luise Carolina BartzMJMaría J.I. BrionesGGGeorge Gardner Brown

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research · Leipzig University · +136 more institutions

PubMed
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Abstract

Soil organisms, including earthworms, are a key component of terrestrial ecosystems. However, little is known about their diversity, their distribution, and the threats affecting them. We compiled a global dataset of sampled earthworm communities from 6928 sites in 57 countries as a basis for predicting patterns in earthworm diversity, abundance, and biomass. We found that local species richness and abundance typically peaked at higher latitudes, displaying patterns opposite to those observed in aboveground organisms. However, high species dissimilarity across tropical locations may cause diversity across the entirety of the tropics to be higher than elsewhere. Climate variables were found to be more important…

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142

Topics & keywords

Topics
Keywords
  • Earthworm
  • Abundance (ecology)
  • Ecology
  • Species richness
  • Biomass (ecology)
  • Habitat
  • Ecosystem
  • Tropics
UN Sustainable Development Goals
  • Life in Land
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