Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface<\/a>, the study revealed just how much work is being carried out by the tiny crustaceans. Each sand hopper can excavate more than 10 times its own body weight in sand for a single burrow. Across every three feet (one metre) of coastline, an estimated 21,450 sand hoppers collectively move around 110 pounds (50 kilograms) of sand each night \u2013 equivalent to roughly 16 half-gallon sandcastle buckets.<\/p>\nTo measure how much material the animals were moving, researchers set up plots on the beach after high tide and returned the following morning to collect and weigh the sand deposited by the hoppers. They also dug into the beach to count the animals living beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
The researchers combined these measurements with eight years of data on sand hopper populations to estimate their impact across the wider coastline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to admit, I did go back through the numbers multiple times just to double check my calculations,\u201d Baxter said. \u201cI was extremely surprised by how much they dug up.\u201d<\/p>\n
The findings highlight how animals can influence landscapes on a much larger scale than their size might suggest. Sand hoppers could even outperform South African sand prawns, which have previously been recorded mixing up to 9 pounds (12 kilograms) of sand per square metre of beach each day.<\/p>\n
However, researchers say comparisons between burrowing animals are difficult because scientists measure their sediment-moving activities in different ways.<\/p>\n
Sand-shifting benefits<\/p>\n
The sand hoppers\u2019 influence also extends beyond simply shifting sand around. Their burrowing can bring oxygen-rich seawater and nutrients into the beach, potentially benefiting other organisms living beneath the surface.<\/p>\n
The loose sand excavated by the crustaceans can also be picked up by the wind and transported higher up the beach, potentially contributing to the formation of dunes. Meanwhile, the hoppers themselves provide an important food source for shorebirds. Other beach-dwellers, including bloodworms and sand crabs, also burrow through and mix the sediment, although their activities can be harder to measure because they don\u2019t leave obvious piles of sand behind.<\/p>\n
Researchers now want to understand how these different animals interact and how their combined efforts compare with physical forces such as wind and waves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe beach ecosystem involves both the organisms that live in it and the landscape that forms it \u2013 they\u2019re components of the same thing,\u201d Baxter said.<\/p>\n
That relationship could also have implications for how beaches are managed. Practices such as beach grooming, in which machinery rakes sand and removes washed-up seaweed, can destroy sand hopper burrows and disturb the animals.<\/p>\n
Discover more fascinating wildlife stories: <\/p>\n
Top image: Megalorchestia corniculata. Credit: Linda Tanner from Los Osos & Atascadero, California, U.S.A., CC BY 2.0<\/a>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers found that the nocturnal creatures, known as sand or beach hoppers (Megalorchestia californiana) can collectively shift around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-632265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}