Soils are getting too moist for the top worm.
A recent warming spell has been good for all soil dwellers except one. The apex predator of the driest soils in the Dry Valleys food chain isn’t a lion or a killer whale, it’s a slender, microscopic worm called a nematode! The most numerous species, Scottnema lindsayae, seems to be dying off. Other organisms are multiplying, but their numbers aren’t growing fast enough. S. lindsayae, which lives only in Antarctica, is a major player in the ground. So if it disappears without a successor, other species—and all the soil ecosystems—will be at risk, too.