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Ecosystem engineers come to town: how fiddler crabs thriving in heavily polluted urban mangroves process plastic particles

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) 2024
José M. Riascos, José M. Riascos, Daniela Díaz, Daniela Díaz, Lina M. Zapata

Summary

Researchers tracked the uptake and fate of labelled polyethylene microspheres released into plastic-polluted urban mangroves inhabited by the fiddler crab Minuca vocator over 66 days, recording one of the highest microplastic uptake levels ever observed in a wild organism at 48.7 particles per crab. The findings reveal how ecosystem engineers like fiddler crabs can bioturbate and redistribute microplastics through sediment reworking, with implications for both crab health and sediment-level microplastic dynamics.

Polymers
PE

Fiddler crab populations are thriving in plastic-polluted hotspots, prompting inquiry into how these creatures navigate the substantial plastic loads within sediments they have evolved to inhabit and feed upon. We released labeled polyethylene microspheres into polluted urban mangroves inhabited by the crab Minuca vocator, which allowed us to track the uptake and fate of microplastics in the crab's organs and in the sediments during 66 days. The observed uptake of microplastics (48.7 per crab) is one of the highest ever recorded in nature and 15 Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559247/document

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