A new study revealed just how crucial of a role insects play in dealing with New York City garbage.
Researchers found urban insects and other arthropods consume a significant amount of garbage and help with its elimination from the crowded streets, North Carolina State University reported.
"We calculate that the arthropods on medians down the Broadway/West St. corridor alone could consume more than 2,100 pounds of discarded junk food, the equivalent of 60,000 hot dogs, every year - assuming they take a break in the winter," said Elsa Youngsteadt, a research associate at NC State and lead author of a paper on the work.
To make their findings the researchers sampled arthropods such as insects and millipedes in street medians and parks in Manhattan to measure the biodiversity and determine how much garbage they consumed in different areas.
In order to determine how much waste these critters munched on the researchers measured the amount of junk food, such as potato chips and hot dogs, consumed at the sites. They placed two sets of food at each location, one was placed in a cage (so only arthropods could reach it) and the other was set out in the open. After 24 hours the team went back to see how much of the food had been eaten.
The researchers determined the arthropods in the medians ate between two and three times more junk food than those in the parks, even though there was less biodiversity in the medians.
"We think this is because one of the most common species in the medians was the pavement ant (Tetramorium species), which is a particularly efficient forager in urban environments," Youngsteadt said.
The team found common city animals, such as rats and pigeons, also play a significant role in the consumption of the waste.
"This means that ants and rats are competing to eat human garbage, and whatever the ants eat isn't available for the rats," Youngsteadt concluded. "The ants aren't just helping to clean up our cities, but to limit populations of rats and other pests."
The findings were published Dec. 2 in the journal Global Change Biology.
