My fiance is a biologist, and I asked him. He says most mammals show kin avoidance (they rarely interbreed on purpose) and hes not sure that is the case in worms, but 300 should be a decent batch to start with. If youre really concerned, get a small batch from Petsmart or the bait shop to add some diversity.

Basically, dont worry about it. But, were not vermi experts. Im curious how Kelly feels.

Had you started your system with a single worm your population would have eventually grown out to the maximum based on the available food and space, and science finds no evidence that inbred weakness or dissease susceptibility would plague the system. Animals that can be self fertile or parthenogenic can be successful without the greater gene diversity necessary to higher animals. You are unlikely to find any identifieable difference in your worm population by adding new gene stock.

Garnetmoth, you know much more about worms than you credit yourself for, and your biologist fiance is a smart guy. He's right that there is no evidence of kin-avoidance among worms, that a stock of 300 worms is a lot of genetic diversity IF all of these worms come from different lineage, and regardless, it's not an issue among earthworms any way.

As to diseases, while it would be an overstatement to say that worms are disease-free, they are nearly so, thus infection due to the inclusion of new worm stock is not a concern.

So, the bottom line is, while there is no danger or problem with introducing new worm stock, neither is it necessary, nor advantageous.

Make sense?

KellyS

So this means worms are not racing against viruses like us higher order organisms.
Interesting, I wonder what makes us so susceptible and not them, more working parts more can go wrong I guess.

Thanks - I'll keep the original pioneers in my bin. Going onto a year, slow ram though.

Thanks Kelly always nice to type to you.
I guess at the years end I need to change my login name. How do I do that ;-)

I started with 200 worms, and now have over a million (just guessing, but I don't think I'm wrong). I've been vermicomposting for way over 10 years.

Which brings up a point: Have vermin been cloned, or did the scientific community greedily go straight to that sheep? Because I can't tell any of my worms apart...they all look EXACTLY alike to me. Are there significant genetic differences microscopically? Would O J's DNA patterns mathematically prove him to be, necessarily, of
an order more significant to the believability of DNA testing itself, and of a lower specie than even my EF?

Boy, vermi farming gets more complicateder all the time, don't it.

Chuckiebtoo