Seagrass beds provide a home for many species of fish. The fish can hide from predators in the blades of grass, and find food in the sand and mud on the bottom. But when the beds get thinner and patchier, the fish thin out, too -- there are fewer fish, and fewer species of fish. So it’s important to keep seagrass beds intact -- splitting them up is bad for the entire ecosystem.
They say that home is where the heart is, and that is literally true with hermit crabs — they carry the shell that houses them wherever they go. Since hermit crabs steal their shells from other creatures, usually sea snails, their shells do not grow with them. So a hermit crab only leaves its shell when it has outgrown the home and moves into a larger one, sometimes even killing the shell’s current resident to acquire its new dwelling.
