earthworms aren’t native either; on the east coast where most of the Bipalium have invaded there are a handful of native species in the mountains but every worm in your garden is almost certainly an old world species and just as nonnative as the bips. Lumbricus, Allolobophora, Aporrectodea, Eisenia, Octolasion—the lot of ‘em.
it’s never so simple as “Nonnative = Bad Except When USDA Says It’s Ok.”
I’m fairly mistrustful of the idea earthworms and honeybees and the like are beneficial to ecosystems they’re not native to. they may certainly be beneficial to humans, providing honey, produce, and compost, but there’s little information about how earthworms and other European detritivores have probably irreversibly changed the whole leaf litter ecosystem of North American forests since the 1500s.
however, the one bit of concern I have over Bipalium seems to work with the fact that earthworms are destructive nonnative species as well: Bipalium adventitium, B. kewense, and B. pennsylvanicum selectively eat tender European earthworms and avoid the Asian Amynthas, which might’ve coevolved with Bipalium and thus has tough, impenetrable skin. Amythas, though, strips forest floors bare of leaf litter and is less edible to some of the native animals that have come to depend on earthworms for food. therefore, by taking out the competition while leaving Amynthas alone, bips might be amplifying the effects of other nonnative species. I’m not exactly sure what can be done in that situation, but I doubt killing individual worms is going to have any affect at all—it’s not like that worked for the lanternflies.
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