![]() ![]() ![]() Success Metric 2: Water quality improvement Stockton student collecting water quality data at the Tuckerton reef. We also discovered that planted oysters grew better on whelk shell compared to oyster shell (don’t tell the shell recyclers this!) however, the larvae preferred to settle on the oyster shells. Initial survivorship was higher in 2020, when recycled shell was primarily used as the substrate. In 2019, oysters were planted over a smaller area, resulting in greater densities in 2020, the oysters were spread out more and had lower densities. We found that the densities at each site are dependent on the shell types used and the planting method. Sampling for density can inform us when certain areas of the reef could use an extra “boost” of spat on shell. This study found that oysters planted in 2016 maintained this minimum density for four years, but by 2020 had fallen below this threshold. In an area like Barnegat Bay, where we plant oysters directly on the bottom, we end up with large oysters with lower densities. It is often dependent on location – oysters can grow bigger at higher salinities. But what is the minimum sustainable number of oysters to make it a “reef”? Past research estimates that number to be around 10-15 oysters per square meter. You can’t have an oyster reef without oysters. Success metric 1: Sustainable populations To get at these numbers, the Barnegat Bay Partnership funded Stockton University in 2019 to study how the Tuckerton Reef impacts water quality and habitat, and to create a baseline for success to compare with other restoration projects. But it is not quite as easy to measure the impacts of the reef: How many of the oysters survived and reproduced to sustain the population? How much water are the oysters filtering? How many other species have benefited from the new habitat? It is easy to talk about the reef in terms of numbers: how many bushels of oyster shell were planted (2,700), how much spat-on-shell went out (45 million), or how many acres of habitat restored (two and growing). In those six years, I’ve been researching how the various types of oysters planted at the site have been growing. The Tuckerton Oyster Reef in Barnegat Bay was established in 2016 as the first oyster restoration project in the southern area of Barnegat Bay, and it is now the largest oyster restoration site in the bay. We can estimate that these oysters could filter more than three times the volume of Barnegat Bay in one hour! But by the mid-1900s, oyster reefs were decimated due to overfishing and environmental changes. In the late 1800s, oysters were estimated to span over twelve thousand acres of the Barnegat Bay. Christine Thompson, Assistant Professor of Marine Science, Stockton University Red beard sponge and other encrusting organisms growing on oyster shells from the reef. By Carly Conticchio, 04/09/22 Share Facebook Twitter ![]()
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