Earthworm

Charles Darwin spent the final years of his life studying earthworms, and what he found astonished him: approximately 53,000 worms per acre, moving 10-18 tons of soil annually. These creatures most people never see are ecosystem engineers whose tunnels aerate soil, improve drainage, mix nutrients, and create channels for root penetration. Without them, soil compacts, water runs off instead of infiltrating, and agricultural productivity drops 30-50%.

Earthworms don't directly feed most organisms - they provide infrastructure enabling other species to thrive. They exemplify positive feedback in niche construction: worms ingest soil, digest organic matter, and excrete nutrient-rich casts. This increases soil fertility, favoring plant growth, which produces more leaf litter, which provides more food for earthworms, supporting larger populations. The feedback compounds across centuries. Amazonian terra preta - pre-Columbian earthworm-rich agricultural soil - remains more fertile than surrounding rainforest soil today, centuries after cultivation ceased.

The business parallel is precise: the most valuable players often aren't the ones generating direct revenue. They're the infrastructure providers whose invisible work enables everyone else's value creation. Earthworms increase decomposition rates by 50-300% and nitrogen availability by 20-50%. They're the AWS of terrestrial ecosystems.