Archived Chat with John Moriarty

Moderator: Great questions everyone! We're glad you could join us this hour. I would like to thank our host researcher, Lee Frelich for answering all of our questions. Stay tuned, the next chat session will be with Lee's graduate student Cindy Hale. It will take place tomorrow at 2:00 p.m Central Standard Time. We hope to see you there!
Lee Frelich: No. There are over 100 species of earthworm native to North America. They all live in the southern part of the U.S. There are none native to Minnesota.
Moderator: The last question this afternoon comes from Petra. Do all the worms in North America come from Europe?
Lee Frelich: Those huge worms eat the soil itself, and they extract nutrients like nitrogen, and also small insects and fungi in the soil are digested.
Moderator: Sarah has a follow up question for you. 'What does the huge earthworm from Australia eat?'
Lee Frelich: My favorite tree at this point is a different one. DUring November, I discovered a white cedar in the Boundary Waters that is about 1000 years old, making it the oldest tree in Minnesota. My favorite tree in the metropolitan area, however, is a bur oak in on Minneapolis campus of the U of MN.
Moderator: Scott wants to know what your favorite tree is. 'Is your favorite tree the one in the picture (in your biography)?'
Lee Frelich: The longest worm I have seen in Minnesota was a nightcrawler about 7 inches long. In Tasmania (part of Australia), however, there are earthworms that are 3-4 feet in length.
Moderator: Sarah from Anoka wants to know : 'What is the longest worm you ever saw?'
Lee Frelich: The garden in Loring Park is extremely diverse. There are 300 different types of flowers there. The center is mostly woodland wildflowers, and the middle ring has many species of perrenial garden plants, like asters, butterfly weed, lilies, and many others. The outer ring has a carpet of junipers with different shades of green.
Moderator: Scott from Minneapolis has this question for you: 'I read your biography and it says you helped build the garden at Loring Park. What kind of flowers did you plant? I've been to Loring Park before.'
Lee Frelich: Yes, the larger species such as the nightcrawler, go 3-6 feet into the soil when the weather gets cold, to get below the depth where the soil freezes. They remain inactive there until spring. Other species lay cocoons in the fall(small white or brown ovals about 1/16 to 1/4 inch long). The adults die, and the cocoon hatch in the spring. So for some species all the worms are new each spring.
Moderator: We have another worm question from Petra. 'do worms hibernate?'
Lee Frelich: When we visit a forest, we usually need to get 10-20 samples, using the frame and mustard water that you saw in the Bell Live! show. You need to wait about 10 minutes for worms to come to the surface for each sample. So to do 10-20 samples takes about half a day.
Moderator: Jessie from Monomonie wants to know 'How long does it take you to get all the earthworms you need for your research?'
Lee Frelich: Yes, lots of tornadoes. During 2001 there were 72 tornadoes in Minnesota. That was a record number. The old record was 57 tornadoes during 1998. They actually did more damge in 1998 than this year, because the 1998 tornadoes had stronger winds--some up to 200 miles per hour, and they ahppened to hit areas where a lot of people lived, like St.Peter.
Moderator: Todd from Duluth is concerned about tornadoes. 'Have there ever been any tornadoes in Minnesota before?'
Lee Frelich: The eartworms usually eat all the leaves on the forest floor, those that fell off the trees the previous October, by the middle of summer. Then they go dormant in the soil and wait for more leaves to fall. They also go dormant during droughts (they don't like dry leaves), and when it is very hot, and during the winter.
Moderator: Petra from indianapolis is wondering 'what will happen to the worms do once they've eaten all of the stuff on the forest floor?' Petra
Lee Frelich: We have had as many as 20-25 worms in one frame. If you extrapolate that out to an acre, there can be as many as 1-2 million European earthworms in some urban forests.
Moderator: Another question from Julio. 'what's the most number of worms you've ever caught in one of those frames?'
Lee Frelich: Trilliums are a member of the lily family. They have a flower with three large white petals in the spring. They are the most well known forest wildflower in the Eastern U.S. Deer like the way way that trilliums taste, probably because they have a lot of nutrients in the leaves. Unfortunately, trilliums are slowly going extinct due to constant grazing by deer.
Moderator: Mike from Duluth wants to know: 'what are trilliums and why do the deer like them so much?'
Lee Frelich: Earthworms can be sorted into general groups of species by size and color. Nightcrawlers, for example, are large and red-to-brown. Some species that never come out of the soil are white. To get down to species, you have to examine mature worms under a 10x microscope to see things such as texture of their skin and structure of the clitellum, which is the band that you see around mature worms.
Moderator: Next question is from Shalandra in Chicago. She thinks all worms look the same to her and wonders how you tell them apart.
Lee Frelich: Members of the deer family that live in cold climates get the biggest. Moose and caribou live in the north and can be very large (moose can be over a thousand pounds). Some deer in tropical forests are only 20-30 pounds when mature.
Moderator: Lee, I know you don't specialize in deer, but perhaps you could answer William's question from Baton Rouge. 'how big can deer get and what is the largest breed?'
Lee Frelich: Deer can travel through most cities, especially along railroad tracks, and through city parks. They can travel at night as well, so people don't see them.
Moderator: We have a great question from Julio in Chicago. 'If the forest is surrounded by the city, how did the deer get there?'
Lee Frelich: I grew up in an area with a lot of tornadoes and always thought that how the forest is changed by these disturbances was interesting. Also, it is fun to be the one that reporters call anytime there is a big storm or forest fire.
Moderator: Mari wants to know 'Why are you a disturbance ecologist?'
Lee Frelich: Other than worms and deer, there are lots of factors that influence urban forests. Salt used to melt snow can kill trees up to 300 feet from the highways. People also injure a lot of trees very badly by using weed eaters, lawnmowers, and other machinery near trees. Many of these trees are infected by fungal diseases and die 10 or 15 years later. Also, pollution from cars causes acid rain and ozone that can affect the growth of many native trees and plants.
Moderator: Ms. Jensen from Menomonie wants to know if you could name some other elements that might impact an urban ecosystem.
Lee Frelich: Some small animals such as insects and mice are killed by fires. However, larger animals such as deer, bears, racoons, squirrels, and also birds, are rarely killed. They can run away from fires. Remember that most of Minnesota has lakes, rivers, and rocky areas that cannot carry fires nearby.
Moderator: John has a follow up question about forest fires. 'Do all the animals die when there's a forest fire?'
Lee Frelich: Earthworms in the garden usually do not hurt the plants. Many of the plants that people grow in gardens came from Europe, and are adapted to get along with the earthworms, that also came from Europe. However, earthworms can cause problems for some native wildflowers in this area.
Moderator: Steve from Menomonie is concerned about earthworms. 'My dad has a lot of earthworms in his garden. Are they going to hurt the plants?'
Lee Frelich: Fires can be bad or good depending on the situation in each forest. Most of the species of trees in northern Minnesota, such as jack pine, white pine, red pine, black spruce and aspen, actually depend on fire. They cannot reproduce very well unless there are fires. At this point, suppression of fire by people has caused problems for them.
Moderator: Annie from Duluth has a quesion about forest fires: 'I heard that forest fires are suppose to be good for the forest. But how can they be good don't they kill everything?'
Lee Frelich: Yes, deer eat a lot of maple seedlings. In northern Minnesota, moose also eat them. Smaller animals like rabbits and snowshore hares eat tree seedlings. Also, when seedlings are very small, and just germinating from seeds, mice and voles eat them.
Moderator: Our next question also comes from Brainerd. John is wondering what other animals eat little sugar maple trees.
Lee Frelich: European earthworms came with potted plants that settlers brought with them. They didn't know that the earthworms would eventually harm our forests in NOrth America.
Moderator: Our first question comes from Peter in Brainerd. He wants to know how worms came to North American from Europe.
Lee Frelich: We study things like forest fires and tornadoes that kill trees in the forest. But we also study species like deer that eat tree seedlings and invading species like earthworms that change the forest.
Moderator: Good afternoon Lee! Perhaps we could start the chat with you telling us what a disturbance ecologist studies.
Lee Frelich: Hello, I am ready to answer your questions.
Moderator: Hello and welcome to the third Bell LIVE! Nature in the City Chat Session! We will be chatting with Lee Frelich this hour so start sending your questions!