Oyster Reef field work and prepping for laboratory analysis

Today was a long, hot and wet day out in the field collecting oyster cores and bags from our research site at Cape Canaveral National Seashore.

Masters student Jennifer Spain is testing recruitment differences between oyster cores and oyster bags.

While oyster bags are well established methods for protecting shorelines and recruiting oysters by providing conspecific cues, they rely on the use of plastics. Oyster cores remove these extra plastics from estuaries but which method is best? Well hopefully be able to contribute answers to these questions soon!

After field sampling the oysters were transported back to the lab and placed in a recirculating aquaculture system. Jennifer will be examining these shells and cores for settled organisms over the next few days.