MBL Ecosystems Center scientists Jim Tang and Faming Wang are among the authors of this research, which was conducted at a Cape Cod salt marsh.

By Elizabeth Pennisi, Science

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY– Experts consider salt marshes foot soldiers in the battle against climate change: In the U.S. Northeast alone, they sop up enough carbon every year to counter the burning of 515 million liters of gasoline. But a tiny creature may be undoing some of those savings. Marsh-dwelling fiddler crabs (Minuca pugnax, formerly Uca pugnax) could be releasing enough carbon from the soil through their millions of burrows to seriously offset the carbon-storing powers of their environments, ecologists report here today at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America. Read more …

Fiddler crab photo: RWI FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY/Alamy Stock Photo

Source: Fiddler crabs produce more carbon dioxide than their marshy homes can handle | Science | AAAS