Mortality of the Atlantic ghost crab Ocypode quadrata (Fabricius, 1787) due to vehicle traffic on sandy beaches: A road ecology approach

Recovery of ghost crabs metapopulations on urban beaches during the Covid-19 “anthropause”

“…Since 2013, the lower ghost crab abundance in high-impact beach sector compared to low-impact one on Grussaí Beach Arc has been attributed to urbanization and recreational activities ( Suciu et al, 2018 ; Machado et al, 2019 ; Costa and Zalmon, 2019 ). Even though ghost crab larvae potentially settle in the most impacted beach sectors, pulse and press disturbances have hindered metapopulation establishment in urban areas ( Costa and Zalmon, 2019 ; Costa et al, 2020b ; Machado et al, 2019 ). It is widely documented that trampling, vehicle traffic and beach cleaning alter the natural substrate stability and prevents the establishment and growth of macroinvertebrates worldwide, similar to ghost crabs in the region ( Machado et al, 2019 ; Suciu et al, 2018 ; Costa et al, 2020b ).…”

“…Our medium-term assessment (eight years) allowed verifying that the peaks of abundance are decreasing overtime in the low-impact beach sector. Possible explanations for this pattern are: (1) increasing of climatic anomalies, including sea surface temperature, frequency and intensity of storms; this has several implication for larvae development, settling and recruitment on beaches ( Ortega et al, 2016 ; Celentano and Defeo, 2016 ); and (2) spreading of human disturbances, including low-intense vehicle traffic ( Davies et al, 2016 ); previous studies showed that the majority of the ghost crabs crushed by vehicles was found in low-urbanized beaches, where they are more abundant and surface-active ( Costa et al, 2020b ). Long-term monitoring depicting the role of climatic variables on sandy beach population is a pressing demand, including ghost crabs that are an important study model and ecological-disturbance indicator species on sandy beaches ( Schoeman et al, 2014 ).…”

Low Densities of the Ghost Crab Ocypode quadrata Related to Large Scale Human Modification of Sandy Shores

“…In fact, this is the case of hundreds of beaches from the coast of Brazil (Amaral et al, 2016). Recreation-associated disturbances, such as trampling and vehicle traffic, clearly impair invertebrate macrofauna (Gheskiere et al, 2005;Schlacher and Thompson, 2012), including ghost crabs (Schlacher et al, 2007;Lucrezi et al, 2009;Costa et al, 2019Costa et al, , 2020c. The suppression of the dry upper beach zone extirpates semi-terrestrial invertebrates due to habitat loss (Dugan et al, 2008;Hubbard et al, 2014;Cardoso et al, 2016).…”

“…Ghost crabs not only respond to anthropogenic drivers, but 1 https://www.un.org/en/about-un/ also to physical environment features such as morphodynamic characteristics (Pombo et al, 2017;Gül and Griffen, 2019) or biological changes like food supply (Tewfik et al, 2016). There are a number of evidences to a common local or regional pattern of burrow density reduction on urban beaches affected by trampling, vehicle traffic, beach cleaning, litter pollution, recreational harvesting, prey depletion and/or armoring (de Souza et al, 2017;Gül and Griffen, 2018;Pombo and Turra, 2019;Costa et al, 2020c). Different preferences of ghost crabs species for across shore zones according to local beach characteristics (Gül and Griffen, 2018;Ocaña et al, 2018) could reveal distinct response to natural habitat modification.…”

Impact of Human Disturbance on Fiddler Crab (<i>Uca tangeri</i>) Burrow Morphology, Distribution and Chemistry at Eagle Island, Niger Delta, Nigeria

“…In contrast, the highly impacted plot had the smallest width because of the fear of pedestrians who step on their holes, or trample and crush them to death, which was often observed along the foot path. However, the case for the Atlantic ghost crab (Ocypode quadrata) is different because they are mainly killed by vehicles rather than by foot on sandy beaches [25]. In contrast, the highly impacted plot has the longest burrow length to provide a safety net for the crabs when confronted by predators or the presence of humans who capture them, and use them as baits for fishing.…”