Harmful or useful? A case study of the exotic peregrine earthworm morphospecies Pontoscolex corethrurus

Abstract

A B S T R A C TExotic peregrine earthworms are often considered to cause environmental harm and to have a negative impact on native species, but, as ecosystem engineers, they enhance soil physical properties. Pontoscolex corethrurus is by far the most studied morphospecies and is also the most widespread in tropical areas. The term of morphospecies is used in this review because P. corethrurus may in fact constitute a complex of cryptic species. This earthworm is found in a wide range of habitats, from apparently pristine to any kind of human-disturbed environment. This review synthesizes 265 studies describing the distribution, morphology, biological and ecological traits of this morphospecies, as well as its impacts on soil conditions and communities. We then discuss the characteristics necessary for this specific morphospecies to become a successful colonizer throughout the world and the positive and negative effects it can have on the ecosystems that it has invaded. We emphasize the lack of knowledge of P. corethrurus reproductive mode and ploidy level, of its population genetics, and of the potential existence of cryptic species. To finish, we highlight the fact that data on P. corethrurus interactions with non-earthworm soil macrofauna are scarce.

Earthworms Building Up Soil Microbiota, a Review

“…This positive priming effect is expected to promote the recycling of nutrients, especially of organic N and P, in the SOM (Kuzyakov et al, 2000;Bertrand et al, 2015). This has been shown for P. corethrurus in several studies, summarised in the recent review by Taheri et al (2018). FIGURE 4 | Relative abundance of microbial phyla reported in soils or substrates processed by earthworms of different functional groups.…”

First Report&nbsp;of the Earthworm <i>Pontoscolex corethrurus </i>(M&uuml;ller, 1857) from Punjab, India

“…Hureta et al [49] also observed that this species prefers soil with high silt content while Marichal et al [50] observed positive relationship between clay content and P. corethrurus. The P. corethrurus were found in high density in a sandy soil having low organic matter content [29]. High abundance of this species in sandy soil may be due to assimilation of carbon released in the soil from plant roots [51].…”

“…Total 24 earthworms individual were collected from sampling site, out which only 6 earthworms were P. corethrurus while others earthworms belongs to species Metaphire posthuma and Amynthas morissi. The coexistence of this species with other native species had been observed in several sites of Brazil, India, Thailand and Singapore [28,29]. Dash and Saxena [30] Fig.…”

Clitellate worms (Annelida) in lateglacial and Holocene sedimentary DNA records from the Polar Urals and northern Norway

“…The glossoscolecid earthworm Pontoscolex corethrurus (six samples, one with two repeats) is a species complex with a circum‐tropical distribution, native to South and Central America, but introduced in tropical and subtropical regions worldwide (Taheri et al . ). The family has no relatives in temperate environments and the genetic distance to other clitellate families rules out misidentification due to amplification or sequencing errors.…”