The worms in the family Lumbricidae originate from Europe, but over time, members of the family have since been introduced and spread around the globe.
Europe Members of Lumbricidae are native to Europe and are most diverse in southern Europe. Another interesting case is of the species
Dendrobaena attemsi in
Scandinavia. It was first found in a national park in
Sweden, the furthest north the species has been found. The discovery of
D. attemsi implies the range of the species is moving north. Not only in Sweden are species of Lumbricidae expanding their range; many of the species found in
Finland are exhibiting similar increases in range and Lumbricidae worms are also expanding into northeastern Europe, starting from the near Baltic Sea. A 2022 molecular phylogenetic study of the highly diverse Franco-Iberian genus
Zophoscolex showed most of the Iberian species to form a distinct clade, formally described as
Castellodrilus stat. nov. Lumbricidae worms are known to be expanding into the
Great Lakes region. In others, Lumbricidae species outweigh the native species in biomass. Despite this, they are not as productive in processing
nitrogen and
phosphorus as the native species. Lumbricidae worms also tend to have a higher species richness than native North American worms, though the species richness of both the native and Lumbricidae decreases with increasing latitudes.
New Zealand and Australia Similar to North America, worms from the family were introduced to
New Zealand and
Australia by European settlers. == Predators ==