A trip to Manhattan is hardly complete without patronizing a food cart. Every day, residents and tourists bustle through the streets eating pretzels and hot dogs. Breakfast is also often consumed in the streets, with workers juggling takeout coffee with their bagels. This activity results in one of the world’s busiest kitchen floors – food crumbs continuously accumulate on the city’s sidewalks and green spaces.
Luckily for us, according to a new paper in Global Change Biology, a tiny clean-up crew follows. North Carolina State University researchers placed fragments of potato chips, hot dogs, and cookies at dozens of sites around Manhattan. Ants and arthropods removed up to 59 percent of the food litter in one day, with median-dwelling ants having the heartiest appetites.
The paper’s lead author Elsa Youngsteadt calculated that the arthropods living in medians along the Broadway/West St. corridor consume more than 2,100 pounds of dropped food – or the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs – each year.
Large cities like New York dispose of roughly 22 pounds of litter per person per year, costing $11.5 billion. Clearly, the amount handled by ants is small, but it is noteworthy and a reminder that insects we consider pests can perform important – if uncelebrated – functions.
Entomologist May Berenbaum of the University of Illinois said of the recent paper, “Recycling is among the least glamorous of ecosystem services provided by arthropods, and this was a great study highlighting both its magnitude and importance.”
Findings may be useful to urban planners, as ants living in green spaces may help keep rats at bay.
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Web Links
Armies of ants keep New York squeaky clean
Study Finds Insects Play Important Role in Dealing with Garbage on NYC Streets
Photo, posted June 14, 2008, courtesy of Larry Jacobsen via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio, with script contribution from the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.