The Population Of The Solent Oyster Population

On March 21st, our class went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The purpose of this trip was not only to explore Earth’s natural habitat’s, but it was also to gather information on our upcoming project and to gather information on how the community of St.Mary, affects the Monterey Bay Aquarium. The answer that we found out is one based off of what we eat. The Monterey Bay Aquarium released an app where it showed which type of seafood were lower in numbers than others. So, if plankton were very low in numbers, it is advised that we not fish for them or not eat as much of it. This shows based just off of what we eat, we can affect the numbers of in the ocean. Also, those plastic bags we buy at Target and Walmart, that we drop outside, drifts itself to the streams, which flow to rivers, which go to oceans, they are floating there, not doing much harm, until sea turtle comes by starts eating it, but gets tangled and choked in it, dies.

Also crabbing which is much like fishing, but the crabs take a major hit every year causes a decrease from taking to many of the species at one time. In fact, it is technically illegal to take a certain percentage of females, however this is rarely enforced as pollution is put into the bay Graczyk, et al (2006) found that salinity levels in the water can cause oyster filtration and energy to change dramatically. Over harvesting isn’t the only cause for the oysters decreasing population. The oysters are also affected by watermen who visit each week for recreational and business purposes. Many oysters are silted over due to mid-Atlantic farms, growing cities and the oyster reefs being destroyed by their dredges (Strickland, 2009). The reefs were not just beneficial to the oysters they are a part of the bays life cycle. The oyster reefs also supply homes for small fish and other small sea creatures (Strickland,

Apalachicola Bay is located on the Northwest coast of Florida and has been called the heart and soul of North Florida. The oysters produced at the bay are undoubtedly superior and are considered the finest in the nation, according to New York Times (New York Times, 2002). In addition, the bay is one of the most productive estuaries in the country. However, the total harvest dropped to around 1 million pounds in 2013 and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration declared a fishery disaster on the bay (Alvarez, 2015). The effect on oystermen's life is even worse. They complained that they are not able to pull out enough oysters to pay for their boat gas.

Today’s eastern oysters range from 3 to 5 inches in length, sometimes as much as 8 inches, although the oysters present during the colonization of the New World were documented to grow much larger (“Oyster History”). Oysters have many great characteristics in regard to their utility for humans as well as wildlife. The build ups of oyster bars, reefs, and beds provide habitat for many aquatic lifeforms and the filtration capabilities they possess is quite remarkable; as filter feeders, oysters feed on phytoplankton and small organisms while removing nutrients from the waters the inhabit, leaving them clear and pristine; just one oyster can filter more than 50 gallons in a day (“Oyster History”). Alas, it was a palatable constitution that made the eastern oyster so popular, creating an extensive economy based on its harvest. Unfortunately, this considerable popularity would ultimately bring the oyster’s

The Callinectes sapidus also known commonly as the Maryland Blue Crab, is a crustacean found in the Chesapeake Bay. The blue crab is found in aquatic environments, most often in estuaries. It characterized by it’s blue claws. The blue crabs undergo a life cycle of: zoeae, megalop, juvenile, and adulthood. The blue crab’s hard shells serve as a protective barrier for external dangers. The Callinectes sapidus comes from the order of Decapods, whereby it’s carapace has now evolved to be better suited for swimming. Of interest is the blue crab’s mating

I know some people say they are “just oysters” they are very important component of our living ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. There are some steps the community can do to help restore the oysters. Cleaning up the bay, is the biggest one. Oysters cant live in pollution. Silt and sediment can bury oyster beds, and nitrogen and phosphorus pollution can cause low-oxygen “dead zones” from which oysters cannot flee. Even moderately low oxygen levels that do not kill oysters outright appear to increase their susceptibility to the disease Dermo. And preliminary experiments suggest that intermittently low oxygen levels common in shallow waters could also weaken oyster immune systems, compounding the disease problem. For this reason, efforts to control nitrogen and phosphorus pollution are important for the recovery of oysters. Poor water quality is yet another hurdle for the return of the Chesapeake Bay’s oyster reefs. Silt washed by rain from urban areas and agricultural fields can bury oyster beds particularly those that have been flattened by dredges.Threats from sewage and bacteria forced Maryland and Virginia to close or restrict oyster harvesting in 223,864

The estimate population of E. virginica was determined to be 985 snails and 2002 snails for the riffle and pool areas respectively (Figure 1). With 95% confidence, the true population of snails in the riffle habitat is between 530 and 1440 snails, while the true population residing in the pool microhabitat falls between 1303 and 2701 snails.

Catch records for the Limulus commercial fishery in the Delaware Bay declined from 4 million horseshoe crabs per year to less than 100,000 between the 1870s and the 1960s (Shuster and Botton, 1985). It wasn’t until the second half of the 20th century that a commercial fishery on horseshoe crabs developed to provide bait for use in catching eel (Anguilla rostrada) and whelk (Busycon spp.) (Ferrari and Targett, 2003). The horseshoe crab commercial fishery has increased dramatically beginning in 1990 (Berkson and Shuster, 1999). A variety of methods are employed by fishermen to capture horseshoe crabs: trawls, dredges, hands, and gillnets (Berkson and Shuster, 1999). Entire beaches covered in horseshoe crabs can easily be harvested by hand since these animals have essentially no defense mechanism (Berkson and Shuster, 1999). Overall, one million Limulus were landed on the Atlantic coastline between 1989 and 1992. This number grew to over two million by

The Ocean. Commonly known, as the big blue is one of the most ecologically diverse habitats on earth. It is home to 7000,000 million different species, all of which directly rely on the stability and natural habitats, which exist around the globe. In fact, over two thirds of the species living in the ocean are unknown (DNews). The industrial revolution changed the world for the better; the industrial revolution introduced hundreds of new products, which changed the way humans live. Throughout this paper we will discuss the causes and solutions to environmental degradation in the ocean.

Throughout decades, sexual selection has been acknowledged in the explanation of evolutionary patterns. With research, we have had the opportunity to study species of animals like the Syngnathidae family. Animals that are included in this category include pipefish, seahorses, and sea dragons. This species is known for their sex role reversal, meaning that the male fertilizes and carries the eggs during incubation after the female has laid them. When we look more specifically at the pipefish, it is found that males are left with most of the parenting and care for the offspring. As the male carries its eggs, it supplies them with nutrients and oxygen through the placenta. During pipefish copulation, the female transfers her eggs through a small

The partial Chesapeake Bay food chain begins with the algae, and continues all the way up to the fish and beyond. All of the organisms living within the Chesapeake Bay need the algae to survive whether they feed directly off of the algae or not. If the algae population decreased, all other aquatic organism populations living within the Chesapeake would decrease as well. With the dying population of algae, the population of zooplankton would slowly begin to decline due to a lack of food. Without as many zooplankton floating throughout the water, oysters would not have as plentiful of a food source thus causing the oyster population to decrease. If the oyster population decreased, fish would not have shelter or clean water to swim in. while oysters are filtering the water for food, they unintentionally clean the water. The fish population would decrease due to poor living conditions and a lack of food. The survival of algae within

The early stages of their lives are spent on the intertidal flats and shallow water areas near their natal beaches. However, as they grow, they wander even farther from the shallow waters into deeper estuarine waters (Shuster, 1979) and are fully capable of excursions onto the continental shelf in search of prey when their habitat is threatened, or when the population becomes too dense (Sekiguchi & Shuster, 2011). Because they can tolerate and cope with wide ranging environmental conditions, especially temperature and salinity, they are classified as environmental generalists (Sekiguchi & Shuster, 2011). Limulus polyphemus are also regarded as dietary generalists; adult horseshoe crabs are omnivorous and feed on a wide variety of seabed invertebrates, including crustaceans, gastropods, polychaetes, bivalves (Botton et al. 2003; Botton, 2009), and even algae (Cartwright-Taylor, 2015). When the crabs encounter patches of their preferred prey, such as bivalves, they have been known to feed extensively, packing their guts with the shells (Botton,

Atlantic croaker larvae have a peak in spawning from July through December and an estuarine recruitment peak in October-November (Cowan, 1988; Ditty et al., 1988; Warlen and Burke, 1990; Barbieri et al., 1994a). Atlantic croaker spawn over a wide range of inner continental shelf depths, i.e., 54 m or shallower, with a portion of the population moving inshore towards the estuaries to complete spawning in the winter and early spring months (Barbieri et al., 1994a, 1994b). Hydrologic variability at large and small spatial and temporal scales can greatly affect the numbers of Atlantic croaker larvae able to successfully recruit to estuarine nursery grounds (Norcross, 1983; Shaw et al., 1988; Raynie, 1991; Raynie and Shaw, 1994). Once in the estuary, lower water temperatures in the first winter decrease survival, as verified in both the field (Norcross and Austin, 1988; Hare and Able, 2007), and laboratory (Lankford and Targett, 2001a, 2001b).

The Atlantic cod fishery collapse left terrible ecological consequences. As mentioned above, the fishing technology was a major destruction to the ecological system by using deployment and draggers. The huge nets that were dropped and dragged along the bottom of the ocean destroyed the underlying eco-system in the process. The effect of selective fishing on spawning grounds – that is, selectively over-exploiting one species in an ecosystem – had disastrous effect on the feeding relationships in that ecosystem. This contributes to the overall reduction of spawning stock biomass of the targeted species, but also an increase in the number of invertebrate and vertebrate predators such as crustacean and fish which will prey on cod eggs, larvae, and younger fish. It is a little wonder that a species like cod, would eventually run into difficulties struggling to survive when its habitat is being continuously destroyed and the balance of their food chain had been wiped out.

Oystercatchers in Flight Sea’s stony greenblue shatters to white in a running swell under noonsky of cloudlight where on a foamed-over cropping of rock a band of oystercatchers faces all one way into a nor’wester so shafts of windlight ignite each orange beak in this abiding tribe of black till you clap and their risen black turns white as they veronica on wind and then away with them (shrill-pitched as frighted plovers only harsher more excited) and riding the stiff wind like eager lovers straining into its every last whim: its pulsing steady heart-push in every flesh-startling open-eyed long-extended deepening sea-breath. Eamon Grennan Oaks, Linda. treesinsunset.jpg.