Nematodes are the most abundant animals on earth and are both taxonomically and functionally highly versatile. In fact, nematodes are placed in all trophic levels in food webs. On this month’s cover image one nematode species, Coomansus parvus, is shown. It is a common predatory nematode. Predators are often low abundant compared to other nematodes, but due to their larger size and the notable tooth in the mouth prey on and control populations of other nematodes.

The article related to the cover describes a combined qualitative and quantitative methodology for indepth studies of soil nematode communities. Geisen et al. show that ecological information obtained solely based on metabarcoding can be error-prone and that additional abundance data through counting might be needed to uncover ecological patterns highlighting the need to link semi-quantitative metabarcoding data with absolute abundance data. This combined methodology might provide an indepth and cost-efficient approach to also study other (soil) biota.

Photo credit: © Wageningen University, Laboratory of Nematology, NL; Hanny van Megen