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Just in time for Halloween, a new study reveals that pumpkin-colored zombies may be running rampant through your local salt marsh. The research isn’t quite as spooky as it sounds. These zombies aren’t flesh-eating humanoids of the "Walking Dead" variety, but tiny shrimp infected by a microscopic parasite.
Even so, their growing abundance in nutrient-fueled salt marshes may well portend future threats to humankind. The study builds on a long-term experiment in which researchers have been adding nitrogen to a New England salt marsh each year since 2004. The researchers’ goal is to investigate how these key coastal ecosystems respond to nutrient-rich runoff from fertilized fields, wastewater treatment plants and other human sources.Image credit: D.S. Johnson/Virginia Institute of Marine Science
