Silver Human Practices
The Plight of the Horseshoe Crab
To understand the plight of the horseshoe crab we decided to reach out to our local authorities, the Georgia Aquarium. The aquarium was able to provide an immersive learning environment. At the Georgia Aquarium, we were able to learn about the crab from our tour guide Max and able to touch the horseshoe crab, it was a tad bit slimy but cute nevertheless. On our tour, we were made aware that horseshoe crabs are crucial to the food webs of many species and that with the depletion of the horseshoe crab population we see a reduction of a lot of other species, especially certain types of birds. The crisis that the horseshoe crab faces was made clear by our tour guide, with the crabs serve as valuable resources for commercial fishers and the biomedical industry. But, in recent years concerns have been raised about the decline in Limuli population. Click on the tabs to learn about crab population threats and environmental impact of crab population depletion.
Source for red knot: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Knot_2012c_RWD.jpg
Botton ML Shuster CN Jr Keinath J . 2003. Horseshoe crabs in a food web: Who eats whom. Pages. 33-153. in Shuster CN Jr, Barlow RB, Brockmann HJ, eds. The American Horseshoe Crab . Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Carmichael RH Rutecki D Annett B Gaines E Valiela I . 2004. Position of horseshoe crabs in estuarine food webs: N and C stable isotopic study of foraging ranges and diet composition. Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology . 299: 231-253.
Castro G Myers JP . 1993. Shorebird predation on eggs of horseshoe crabs during spring stopover on Delaware Bay. The Auk . 110: 927-930.