Resourceful Crustaceans Turn Invasive Seaweed into Homes

When a new developer comes to town and starts aggressively building up the empty property around your home, you can get mad—or you can move in. That's what tiny crustaceans in the Georgia mudflats have done. Facing an invasive Japanese seaweed, they've discovered that it makes excellent shelter, protecting them from all kinds of threats. And where the crustaceans went, a whole ecosystem has followed. Jeffrey Wright is an ecologist who studies invasive species at Australian Maritime College in Tasmania. He traveled all the way to the southeastern United States to study Gracilaria vermiculophylla, a Japanese seaweed that's made a name for itself by crashing both coasts of North America as well as northern Europe. Wright had previously studied a similar seaweed in Australia, and was eager to see how this ecosystem compared. In Georgia and South Carolina, Gracilaria has moved into marshy coastal areas, taking over the mudflats that ...