Location: Unitarian Church, 130 Main St., Montpelier, VT

• We tend to think of earthworms as positive, helpful creatures which build soil, improve fertility, improve aeration, store water and help their ecosystems. But this is NOT true about an Asian species known as crazy snake worm, Amynthas agrestis.  Josef Görres will speak about these alien earthworms which are rapidly spreading throughout Vermont and which negatively affect our forests and gardens.  The worms arrive in containers of plants, or with woodchips or other mulches.
• Professor Görres teaches soil science at UVM.Studying soil profiles lead to an interest in alien earthworms which are negatively impacting forest soils and hence the plants, fungi and animals which grow in Vermont forests.Josef is conducting cutting edge research which he will report on.
• Come and learn about ‘crazy snake worms’ and the results of their voluminous appetites for duff which impoverishes forest ecosystems by keeping most understory plants, and many trees, from germinating.This results in almost-sterile ecosystems that are not sustainable.

Learn more about Earthworms in Forests.