The Effect Climate Change Temperatures have on Dendrodrilus rubidus

Climate change has greatly affected many animals and ecosystems in the world today. Due to its effects, many species of animals and plants are facing extinction. Decomposers are known to be a very important group of animals in an ecosystem. This experiment tested the effect of increasing temperature on earthworms. The experiment used temperatures recorded from the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources to test on the earthworms. Earthworms were placed into three plastic terrariums made from juice jugs and placed in incubators. To record the number of earthworms that were alive, water was poured into the terrarium enough to flush the worms up to the surface of the soil. The soil was then disturbed and the worms were counted and recorded on a data table. The results were inconclusive as all the worms placed in the incubator perished after one day. The worms may have died for many reasons, but one major one is that they were not able to survive the temperatures and died as a result