GLOBAL DIVERSITYOF EARTHWORMS IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES AND CONTINENTS: A SHORT REVIEW.

Earthworms are considered the best ecological engineers and they are distributed across various ecotypes around the world. The diverse habitats of earthworms make them interesting to explore. In addition, this review discusses the availability of various species of earthworms in relation to the various land use systems in various countries and continents. The structure of the population of earthworms s varies by land use patterns in different agro-climatic regions of the country. Biodiversity is an essential determinant of an ecosystem and earthworms are generally classified into five ecological types, i.e. anecic, corticolous, endogeic, epigeic and limicolous. The seven continents of the world belong to various ecological zones, including various agroecosystems and include a great diversity of earthworms. Researchers examined the paucity of research on the interacting effects of several global changes affecting earthworms in order to understand the various factors related to the diversity of earthworms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]