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Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.

Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.
Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.
Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.
Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.
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71796
Kleindinst, Thomas N.
Fiddler crab from West Falmouth marsh.
Still Image
03/13/2007
_DSC3390_CRAB_f.jpg
Caption from Oceanus Vol. 45, No. 3, Front Cover:
Fiddler crabs pointed the way to answering a question that long nagged scientists: Did oil spilled into a Cape Cod salt marsh from a barge that ran aground in 1969 still have impacts on wildlife living in the marsh?
Image Of the Day repeat caption:
Fiddler crabs answered a question marine chemists and ecologists have long pondered: Does oil still have impacts on wildlife decades after it was spilled in a salt marsh? Researchers led by WHOI chemist Chris Reddy showed that in the areas where oil persisted more than 30 years after a 1969 oil spill in Falmouth, Massachusetts, there were fewer crabs, and they moved more slowlyas if intoxicated from residual oil exposure. When the crabs ran into lingering oil patches, they stopped digging downward, creating shallower burrows that made them more vulnerable to predators and diminishing tilling needed to maintain healthy marshes.
Image Of the Day caption:
For decades, marine chemists and ecologists have been wondering: does the oil that was spilled into a Cape Cod salt marsh in 1969 still have an impact on the wildlife living in the marsh? Tiny fiddler crabs recently helped provide an answer.
Photo by Tom Kleindinst
© Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
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