Geburzi, Jonas C. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4851-8488 and Zimmer, Martin ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1549-8871 (2025) Vultures of the Sea and Shredders in the Woods: Crustaceans as Detritivores and Scavengers. In: Ecology and Conservation. ; 10 , ed. by Thiel, Martin and Gutow, Lars. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 68-99. First ISBN 9780197768273 DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197768242.003.0003.

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Abstract

Detritus, that is, dead organic matter of any size and origin, forms an important energetic and nutritional basis for food webs in terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems. Across all ecosystems, crustaceans are strongly involved in the turnover of detritus, thus being important mediators of this fundamental ecosystem process. Crustaceans have evolved physiological, behavioral, and morphological adaptations toward a specialized detritivorous or scavenging lifestyle, yet omnivory is a unifying feature of their feeding ecology. Their diversity, nutritional flexibility, and individual motility assign detritivorous crustaceans a central position in many food webs, connecting them to particularly high numbers of other food web components, in some cases even across habitat boundaries. Large detritivorous crustaceans, in particular, act as shortcuts in detrital food web pathways by directly linking detritus-derived energy to the highest trophic levels. In some ecosystems, crustaceans dominate detritivore communities. In freshwater streams and on vegetated coasts, crabs, isopods, and amphipods shred and consume up to 100% of the plant litter input. In the pelagic zones of lakes and oceans, copepods, mysids, and euphausiids mediate the flux of particulate organic matter through the water column. In the deep sea, scavenging amphipods are the primary consumers of food falls, from jellyfish to whale carcasses, acting as spatial and temporal vectors of detritus-derived energy. Anthropogenic impacts, such as pollution, fisheries, species introductions, or climate change, already affect detritivorous crustacean communities and their contributions to detritus processing in various ways, but their long-term effects are still poorly understood.

Document Type:	Book chapter
Programme Area:	PA4
Research affiliation:	Ecology > Mangrove Ecology
DOI:	https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780197768242.003.0003
Date Deposited:	12 May 2026 16:16
Last Modified:	12 May 2026 16:16
URI:	https://cris.leibniz-zmt.de/id/eprint/6089

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