Post date: Apr 26, 2016 7:07:18 PM
Eastern oysters, Crassostrea virginica, provide a valuable commercial and ecological resource. Unfortunately, a number of factors, primarily overharvest, but also disease and habitat loss, have led to a collapse in many populations of oysters along the East and Gulf US coasts, including coastal Georgia. Due to their importance, many different governmental and non-governmental organizations invest significant amounts of money and effort into restoring oyster reefs and populations. Thus, there is considerable interest in examining factors that influence oyster recruitment, growth and survival to improve restoration success. This project aims to investigate whether sites of groundwater discharge, particularly in areas of discharge off coastal marshes, impact oyster population demography. A colleague in the Geology Department, Jacque Kelly, has been monitoring groundwater discharge in Georgia, and made the anecdotal observation that in areas in a local creek with high groundwater discharge, there are low oyster abundances. Together, we plan to investigate this relationship more fully, by sampling oyster densities, monitoring recruitment and growth of oysters, as well as a number of environmental parameters, in areas of high and low groundwater flow. This pilot scale project will be sponsored by funds from the Faculty Research Committee at Georgia Southern. It is anticipated the data collected during this study will provide foundational evidence for broad scale studies and provide information critical to management and restoration of this vitally important coastal resource. We look forward to starting this project in July.