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AP: A bag of Cheetos created a huge impact on a national park ecosystem
https://apnews.com/article/carlsbad-caverns-national-park-cheetos-04f30c48dfa7fa3deee29702e083aa56A bag of Cheetos created a huge impact on a national park ecosystem
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Updated 12:43 PM EDT, September 12, 2024
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A bag of Cheetos gets dropped and left on the floor. Seems inconsequential, right?
Hardly.
Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this specialized subterranean environment home. The bag could have been there a day or two or maybe just hours, but those salty morsels of processed corn made soft by thick humidity triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formations.
“To the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact,” the park noted in a social media post, explaining that cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized to eat and disperse the foreign mess, essentially spreading the contamination.
…
By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN
Updated 12:43 PM EDT, September 12, 2024
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A bag of Cheetos gets dropped and left on the floor. Seems inconsequential, right?
Hardly.
Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this specialized subterranean environment home. The bag could have been there a day or two or maybe just hours, but those salty morsels of processed corn made soft by thick humidity triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formations.
“To the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact,” the park noted in a social media post, explaining that cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized to eat and disperse the foreign mess, essentially spreading the contamination.
…
