How would the removal of worms effect the biosphere, hydrosphere, lithosphere, and atmosphere?
The present atmosphere would not exist without the biosphere. In order to put oxygen into the air, there had to be plants, which take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen in the process of photosynthesis. This resulted from an exceedingly complex series of evolutionary developments from anaerobic, or non-oxygen-breathing, single-cell life-forms to the appearance of algae. As plant life evolved, eventually it put more and more oxygen into the atmosphere, until the air became breathable for animal life. Thus, the atmosphere and biosphere have sustained one another. Such overlap is typical and indeed inevitable where the open earth subsystems are concerned, and examples of this overlap are everywhere. For instance, plants (biosphere) grow in the ground (geosphere), but to survive they absorb water (hydrosphere) and carbon dioxide (atmosphere). Nor are plants merely absorbing: they also give back oxygen to the atmosphere, and by providing nutrition to animals, they contribute to the biosph
