Question: hello mark tell me about your work please.

Mark Hodson answered on 18 Jun 2013:

Hi bmassen,

I do several things – at the moment my main focus is how earthworms behave in soils.

I am trying to find out whether earthworms increase or decrease greenhouse gas emissions from soils. This work involves keeping earthworms in soils and monitoring the gas that comes of soils – things like carbon dioxide. I also test the soil to see what has happened to the carbon.

Another interest is how earthworms survive floods and droughts.

A third earthworm related interest is collecting calcium carbonate from earthworm poo! Calcium carbonate is the same sort of mineral as chalk. I’m interested in this because the calcium carbonate can last in soils for thousands of years and we can analyse it to find out about past climates to investigate climate change in the past.

A research interest that doesn’t involve earthworms looks at how poisonous metals behave in soils that have been poisoned by old mine working or industrial accidents. I then work out how to clean up the soil so it can be reused for playing fields or building houses on.

There’s a lot of variation in what I do which is why it’s such fun – I’m never bored.

cheers

m