The Western Antarctic Peninsula, the long arm of Antarctica reaching up to South America, is one of the fastest-warming polar regions on the planet. Hannah Prather and colleagues have studied how this warming is affecting the plant life in the area, and the answer seems to depend on what species you’re looking at. Critically temperature appears to affect sexual expression on one of the dominant mosses. “Our results indicate that continued warming may impact the reproductive output of Antarctic moss species, potentially altering terrestrial ecosystems dynamics from the bottom up,” say the authors in their paper. “Understanding these effects requires clarifying the foundational, mechanistic role that individual plant species play in mediating complex interactions in Antarctica’s terrestrial food webs.”