Many parts of North America did not have earth worms before they were introduced by European settlers. It's a question of semantics, but it is often argued that almost all worms are invasive in the United States. The devil you know...
"If you live in an area of North America where the glaciers once rested, there are no native terrestrial worms in your region. All of North America's native worm populations reside in the southeast and the Pacific northwest. All other worms species were wiped out by the glaciers. This means that, for millennia, northern North America's native ecosystems have evolved without the influence of any type of worms in the soil.
When Europeans settled the continent, they brought with them earthworms, specifically those known as night crawlers and red wigglers, in the ballasts of their ships. Since then, these worms have been spread all over the continent by a wide range of human activities like farming, composting, and fishing. Since their introduction, many forests have been invaded by these annelids and are now suffering heavily from earthworm activities."
It actually can be a pretty huge deal. On their own it's not the biggest issue, but they can compound a lot of invasive plants. Most native flora evolved without earthworms. Earthworms are incredibly effective at breaking down matter into easily accessible nutrients for plants. Native plants aren't built to take advantage of this. You know which plants are though? Non-native invasive plants from the rest of the earthworm-having world
Earthworms are generally a very welcome addition to any soil ecology, but they're currently playing an extremely destructive role. A role that probably wouldn't be as problematic if it weren't for all the compounding effects of other invasive species
I think this is a problem as old as the world. I was recently reading archives of the Jurassic News from roughly 165 million years ago, and I found a very interesting discussion between dinosaurs of that age. They were discussing how these new flying species, commonly referred to as birds, are a problem because they fly, move at vast distances and spread non-native plants by eating seeds and crapping them miles away.
Yes I don't disagree, but I think it's the same as everything related to topics of climate change. For example, the global increase in temperature itself isn't what's bad. We've had temperatures this high before and it led to global rainforests. The bad part is how fast it's happening and all the confounding factors causing a runaway effect
Perhaps if done carefully we could eco-engineer earthworms back into north american soil ecologies. But it's not being done carefully
I hypothesize that invasive species will come to refer to those species that we just don't like or whose function we find annoying or dangerous. Some invasive species could be endemic and fill an ecological role which had been unfulfilled by human intervention or habitat destruction.
Thanks - you enabled my grandson to see the prize before he went to bed. He was more taken with the "Giant Gippsland Earthworm from Australia". Crazy! Yes, the whole video is on my schedule to watch later.
"If you live in an area of North America where the glaciers once rested, there are no native terrestrial worms in your region. All of North America's native worm populations reside in the southeast and the Pacific northwest. All other worms species were wiped out by the glaciers. This means that, for millennia, northern North America's native ecosystems have evolved without the influence of any type of worms in the soil.
When Europeans settled the continent, they brought with them earthworms, specifically those known as night crawlers and red wigglers, in the ballasts of their ships. Since then, these worms have been spread all over the continent by a wide range of human activities like farming, composting, and fishing. Since their introduction, many forests have been invaded by these annelids and are now suffering heavily from earthworm activities."
https://www.indefenseofplants.com/blog/2017/5/3/invasion-of-...