Archeologists checked the soil, as well, to ensure the research didn’t disturb artifacts. They collected leaf litter and soil samples from all of the study sites and carefully sifted through huge bagfuls with the help of volunteers. Researchers looked for the worm along roads, picnic areas, and parking areas near trailheads, where people and disturbed areas come together. They collaborated with scientists at the University of Georgia in Athens and the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah. The researchers received funding from the Austrian Science Fund.

Which species are the winners and which species are the losers: Anita Juen and Daniela Straube, two scientists from the University of Innsbruck in Austria, conducted a three year study (2010 to 2012) to analyze what these worms are doing to the park’s food web-in this case, if predators change their diet to eat the invasive earthworms. Researchers Anita Juen (on left) and Daniela Straube from Austria sift through soil samples. Without this food, native animals are disappearing, and the nutrients from decaying plants aren’t there to build new soil! In some areas on the western side of the Smokies, the Jumping Worm population is so high there is almost no leaf litter left. If you were a leaf-litter-feeder such as a millipede, fly larvae, or springtail, this would be a big problem because your food source would be gone! It would also be bad if you were a creature that ate these invertebrates, if you were a salamander or wildflower tuber that lived in the organic layer of the soil. That same tenacious appetite means that when people release their bait (or their bait escapes) and the worms make their way to the forest, they consume massive amounts of leaf litter. You may know this worm already, although when the Asian Jumping Worm ( Amynthas agrestis) is sold for bait or composting as the Alabama Jumper or Georgia Jumper, there is no mention of the destruction it can bring to forests.Ĭomposting ads boast that the worm can eat and process more than its body weight in organic matter (vegetable scraps, leaves, lawn trimmings, etc.) each day. Asian Jumping Worms have a wide clitellum (band) around their bodies.

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