As above. Sorry if this is a silly question!
I realise there is no ‘point’ to any particular animal or plant, but you often find that various species provide some sort of benefit (e.g. plants giving out oxygen, those birds that clean crocodiles’ teeth, spiders eat a lot of flies).
I just wondered if worms are particularly ‘useful’, because they don’t seem to do much from what I can tell
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They help create the soil. They chew up the different ingredients and poop them out and it loosens the ground so that air and plants can get in and grow.
Edit: chew up*
Not a biologist…..earthworms create holes for nutrients to get to the roots of plants and their poop is a really good fertilizer
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Agriculture. They improve soil. Essentially all the earthworms in North America are non-native – the good ones brought to improve soil – the bad ones (e.g. asian jumping worms) brought inadvertently.
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“It may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures.” Charles Darwin.
Typical earthworm populations can easily consume 2 tons of dry matter per acre per year, partly digesting and mixing it with soil.
Earthworm castings have nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, zinc…
Earthworms also help in maintaining the soil structure, drainage, and aeration.
Once upon a time I was told the Universe is an empty stomach, demanding to be fed. Anywhere there is something — anything — that can be used as ‘food’ there is something eating it. Sandy beaches and lagoons on tropical isles are the coral crunched by Parrot fish (to digest the coral polyps inside) and then shat out as … sand!
Likewise, much of topsoil is made of worm casts — their excreta — as they process the soil to digest the organic debris. IIRC a 18th century science type measured out a large area on his estate. Daily, he would collect the little mounds of worm casts covering the lawn. He soon calculated that the entire volume of that area, to a depth of several feet, would have passed through a worm gut several times in a decade, much less a century!
And, having processed/digested that organic material, it is easier for other lifeforms to use for their own nutrition — plants, fungus, insects, and so on.
Almost every life form has some advantage to offer another life form. For example, Hookworm, a lung parasite, seems to offer a defense to various allergies. Sickle cell anemia seems to offer a defense to malaria. Malaria was once used as a cure for Syphilis. The Malaria was then cured with Quinine.
Tetracycline antibiotic was refined from rotten sweet potatoes. The people cherished the times of rot because it would relieve their diseases. Like Penicillin, it took an open mind to look past the ‘ignorant natives’ and their customs.
And so on. If someone ever finds a natural cure to the Tsetse Fly and Sleeping Sickness, huge area of Africa will have better conditions. Sadly, sometimes the Humans are the end phase of the advantage to lifeforms like liver flukes, yellow fever, viruses, and such.
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Darwin’s last paper on the effects of tiny changes over long time spans focused on the illusion of ancient structures sinking into the ground; he proved that they don’t. Earthworms cause the soil to rise up around the base. Earthworm make soil and existing soil better.
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