Aquaculture 2025

March 6 - 10, 2025

New Orleans, Louisiana USA

Add To Calendar 08/03/2025 11:30:0008/03/2025 11:50:00America/ChicagoAquaculture 2025EVALUATING STOCK ENHANCEMENT METHODS FOR HARD CLAMS Mercenaria mercenaria AND EASTERN OYSTERS Crassostrea virginica IN A RECRUITMENT-LIMITED TEMPERATE LAGOONGalerie 4The World Aquaculture Societyjohnc@was.orgfalseDD/MM/YYYYanrl65yqlzh3g1q0dme13067

EVALUATING STOCK ENHANCEMENT METHODS FOR HARD CLAMS Mercenaria mercenaria AND EASTERN OYSTERS Crassostrea virginica IN A RECRUITMENT-LIMITED TEMPERATE LAGOON

Michael H. Doall*, Timothy P. Curtin, Brooke K. Morrell, Christopher J. Gobler

 

School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University

239 Montauk Highway, Southampton, NY 11968, USA 

Corresponding: michael.doall@stonybrook.edu

 



Bivalve restoration in recruitment-limited systems necessitates stock enhancement to boost fertilization efficiency and larvae production. Over ten years, the Shinnecock Bay Restoration Program (ShiRP) has helped rebuild hard clam (Mercenaria mercenaria) populations in Shinnecock Bay, NY, through the stocking of spawner sanctuaries. Hydrodynamic models showed that larvae spawned in these sanctuaries were transported to areas where clam densities increased over 50-fold from 2012 to 2022. Increases in hard clam abundance resulted in an over 1,500% increase in commercial landings, with annual hard clam landings reaching levels not seen in 40 years in Shinnecock Bay (Figure 1). ShiRP focused on stocking sanctuaries with adult, market-size clams that were wild-harvested from surrounding coastal waters rather than less-expensive hatchery-produced clam seed, as monitoring and field experiments demonstrated that outplanted seed clams experienced near complete mortality from predation. Adult clams, on the other hand, exhibited high survivorship for over a decade after planting. ShiRP is now using this system-level approach to rebuild an oyster (Crassostrea virginica) metapopulation in Shinnecock Bay, establishing sub-populations in zones with maximal larval retention to enhance recruitment and population connectivity. Since 2018, ShiRP has annually deployed bags of oyster spat-on-shell (SOS), creating small-scale experimental reefs to evaluate oyster survivorship, growth, reproduction, disease, and recruitment. Repeatedly, oyster SOS has exhibited about 50% survival in the first-year post-deployment, substantially higher than hard clam seed of similar size. As adults, however, oyster longevity is substantially lower than that of hard clams, primarily due to the oyster disease Dermo. Recently, ShiRP partnered with the Supporting Oyster Aquaculture and Restoration (SOAR) program to deploy adult farm-raised oysters in Shinnecock Bay. The restoration value of this additional stock enhancement strategy in combination with SOS will be discussed in light of the monitoring results.