The Effects of Drought on the Movement of Lumbriculus variegatus

Karla Rodriguez University of Georgia: Biology Division

Introduction: L. variegatus is one of the many organisms found in the benthos of aquatic environments. This species is a type of segmented worm and they rely on their moist environment for gas exchange, among other things. They play a major role in the recycling of nutrients in the sediment of lakes by enhancing primary production and the release of nutrients (Muli, 2005). Because of these worms locations along the edges of their benthic environments, they are highly susceptible to water level fluctuations. If water levels change by even the slightest, the existing ecosystem in that body of water can be greatly affected, causing a decrease in the number of organisms living there, including the species studied here (Havens et al., 2007). Droughts are a major cause of water level fluctuations in aquatic environments. For instance, when droughts occur, less water is getting put into aquatic ecosystems while water leaves through evaporation. When this occurs, the benthic environment that used to be under water is now exposed to the dry, arid environment. This study aims to investigate whether or not, when given the option, L. variegatus will choose a moist or dry environment. When the water level falls, these worms will be exposed to the arid environment which will ultimately dry them out and kill them. In case of drought, the worms would have to move to the new benthic environment in order to survive. This experiment shows that more of the L. variegatus move to the moist environment than the dry, then it can be concluded that in case of a drought the worms would move to find moist environment again. Methods: In this experiment, thirty-two L. variegatus were used: thirty were used as experimentals while two were used for controls. Ten dishes were set-up representing mini-environments that the worms would encounter. The dishes were divided up into two sections: a moist side and a dry

side. Sand was used as the substrate in this experiment to rule out any confounding variables, such as nutrients, as the cause of the movement. The positive control used consisted of both sides being moist while the negative control used consisted of both dry sides. To create the moist sand, distilled water was added to dry sand and in proportions that resulted in running of water out of the sand. After all of the dishes were set up, five worms were placed into each dish and allowed fifteen minutes to move, their location in the dish was noted and recorded as being moist, dry or gap environment. Results: The tallied numbers of the different locations of the worms in the dishes were compared to one another which are the basis for interpreting this data. These numbers were then converted into percentages to allow for a clearer grasp on the movement of the worms. The following graphs represent the data collected in this experiment. ADD GRAPH OF NUMERICAL REPRESENTATION OF WORMS IN EACH ENVIRONMENT. ADD PIE GRAPH OF PERCENTAGES OF THE WORMS IN EACH ENVIRONMENT. As both figures in the previous section show, a majority of the worms were found in the moist environment of the dishes: eighteen out of the thirty worms equaling to sixty percent. Seven percent of the worms moved to the dry sand while thirty-three percent of the worms exhibited no movement to either side. Discussion: From the results, it is evident that more of the worms moved to the moist environment than to the dry environment. These results support the hypothesis in the fact that the worms chose to move to a moist environment. Because the worms shoed movement towards water we

can conclude that in the face of drought a majority of the worms in that environment would move to find the moist environments again, therefore increasing survival rates. A couple of issues that presented during the experiment dealt with the design of the setup. One of the problems was that the dishes were slanted to allow water to retreat as in a drought. Because of this factor some of the worms may have been slid down by the water current. Another issue that arose was the fact that different sized worms were used. If this experiment was to be repeated, the same size worms should be used for every control and experimental group. We could also use heat lamps to represent the sunlight in the natural environments.

References: Havens, K., East, T., Beaver, J. 2007. Zooplankton Response to Extreme Drought in a Large Subtropical Lake, Hydrobiologia. 598(1): 187-198. McGowan, S., Leavitt, P., Hall, R., 2005. A Whole-Lake Experiment to Determine the Effects of Winter Droughts on Shallow Lakes, Ecosystems. 8(6): 694-708. Muli, J. 2005. Spatial Variation of Bethic Macroinvertebrates and the Environmental Factors Influencing their Distribution in Lake Victoria, Kenya, Aquatic Ecosystem Health & Management. 8(2): 147-157. Sardo, A.M., Soares, A.M., Gerhardt, A., 2007. Behavior, Growth, and Reproduction of Lumbriculus Variegatus (Oligochaetae) in Different Sediment Types, Human & Ecological Risk Assessment. 13(3): 519-526.