I think you literally made 100% of the first half of this up
There are no earthworms that used to be here; read the article. Crazy worms do exactly the same thing (remove the layer of leaf litter that traditional NA boreal forests depend on), they just spread a little more quickly which makes it a little more of a problem. But the essential issue is the same. And I don’t think killing either one of them makes any difference at all; humans will not encounter either one on anything even remotely similar to the scale that would make going after them on an individual level a useful thing to do.
Edit: Okay I am totally wrong; the article talks about northern forests only, and what I’m saying isn’t true of the US / North America as a whole.
“Of the 182 taxa of earthworms found in the United States and Canada, 60 (33%) are introduced species, these earthworm species are primarily from Europe and Asia.”
There are native species of earthworms in North America. Just that there are no native species at certain latitudes, because of the last ice age.
“Earthworms are shifting their ranges northwards into forests between 45° and 69° latitude in North America that have lacked native earthworms since the last ice age.”
While it may not do much to go after them on an individual level, there are ways to mitigate or slow their breeding and migration. For example they could introduce native predators that could reduce their populations.
I think you literally made 100% of the first half of this up
There are no earthworms that used to be here; read the article. Crazy worms do exactly the same thing (remove the layer of leaf litter that traditional NA boreal forests depend on), they just spread a little more quickly which makes it a little more of a problem. But the essential issue is the same. And I don’t think killing either one of them makes any difference at all; humans will not encounter either one on anything even remotely similar to the scale that would make going after them on an individual level a useful thing to do.
Edit: Okay I am totally wrong; the article talks about northern forests only, and what I’m saying isn’t true of the US / North America as a whole.
“Of the 182 taxa of earthworms found in the United States and Canada, 60 (33%) are introduced species, these earthworm species are primarily from Europe and Asia.”
There are native species of earthworms in North America. Just that there are no native species at certain latitudes, because of the last ice age.
“Earthworms are shifting their ranges northwards into forests between 45° and 69° latitude in North America that have lacked native earthworms since the last ice age.”
While it may not do much to go after them on an individual level, there are ways to mitigate or slow their breeding and migration. For example they could introduce native predators that could reduce their populations.