Hi jeremymigner and All; Worms breath via the procsee of osmosis. The source of the oxygen they consume is the mousture in the bedding or soil they live in. They absorb the oxygen through the skin. They do not exhale carbon dioxide or anything for that matter. Any gasses would be expelled in the excreatment they produce and I know of no studies to check for that.

They don't exhale CO2, but they definitely expel it, as well as nitrous oxide, which is several hundred times more potent. The oxygen has to go somewhere in their metabolism. I'm not sure how much they produce, but I know that massive vermicomposting operations produce quite a bit of greenhouse gases

Osmosis is a process that causes fluids, not gasses, to pass through membranes. Moisture cannot be a source of oxygen, since oxygen is not a fluid. Oxygen that worms absorb is not normally dissolved in water, but comes from the air itself, which is why anaerobic conditions are bad for worms. The metabolic process converts oxygen to carbon dioxide, which must be expelled in some manner. A worm passes the carbon dioxide through its skin in the same way it absorbs oxygen through its skin.

I found a paper that describes the process, though it does not say how much CO2 worms produce.

http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~glauren/Diffusion%20paper.pdf

It isn't only the worms, but the high concentration of aerobic bacteria that is breathing in this manner.

The bottom line for Jeremy is that if there is enough oxygen in the building to sustain human life, then there is enough to sustain the worms. Unless you had several tons of worms in a very small space, I cannot imagine them creating enough CO2 to make a significant difference in the total amount of CO2 in the air, especially since humans entering and leaving the room will cause some air circulation between the room and the outside air.

Since the respiratory process for worms is passive, if the CO2 levels in the room got too high, the worms would no longer be able to pass CO2 through their skin, which, I would imagine, would be toxic to them.

Hi All; Worms can and many species do live completely submerged in water. The oxygem these worms breath is the gas form of air in the water. Water is the vehical in which the gases carry the air to the worms skin. It is also the the vehical that gases leave the worm same process in reverse. The slime on the worms body is the first thing oxygem goes through to be taken in and the last thing the gases go through on the way out. The gases produced strickly by worms in their motablizium is expelled in their castings for the most part. Anerobic conditions do not exist in a worm bin that has sufficient airflow. It is not created by the worms themselves it is created by microbial activities and the gases from that activity being captured by water and the air in the water being exchanged for the captured gases. The osmosis porcess of breathing that worms use allow the muscle activity get fresh oxygen directly and the blood pics its oxygen from the muscle tissue and distributes the oxygen from there to the internal structures of the worm that need it. Worms activities (digesting organic material)do not require any oxygen the process is breaking down complex material into simplar molecular combinations or the elements that make up their castings. Worms themselves produce little green house gas. The other organisms far exceed the worms generation amounts. As I said I know of no studies that have seperated worm from the microbes so that only worms contribution can be measured.

Hi All; Heres a link thet is about green house gases.

Here is a link that might be useful: Earthworms and Green House Gases