Living Shorelines can form naturally or be developed through creative engineering
These concrete Reef Balls are an innovative solution for providing surface area where oysters can colonize.
Students were able to experience live oysters in the classroom and learn about how oysters are filter feeders. Students also learned how one oyster can clean around 50 gallons of water per day. Oysters are an important component to living shorelines along with seagrasses, mangroves and other marine organisms.
Wilson Middle School students commemorated Earth Day by joining Thomas Ries of Ecosphere on a shoreline enhancement effort along the shores of the Hillsborough River, (Saturday April 20th).
Mangroves can grow in either fresh or salty water and are a first line of defense to protect our coastal shorelines from erosion. They also provide habitat for the nesting grounds of many marine species and are an easy place to hang a vertical oyster garden.
We really enjoyed learning about three different types of mangroves that support Florida estuaries. Mr. C gave us a test to make sure that we knew the difference between Red, Black and White Mangroves and how to identify them. Red Mangroves are sometimes referred to as the walking tree because they look like they have walked out into the water with their spider-like legs. They have cigar shaped propagules that float on the water until they are planted on a new shoreline. Black Mangroves have peg-like roots called pneumatophores that stick out of the ground like little snorkels allowing the tree to breathe. The underside of black mangrove leaves are silvery and salty. The smallest of the three is the White Mangrove which is often found much further inland, the leaves are a bright green, and its root system is able to exclude salt by filtering brackish water.
Oyster Reef Orbs, a.k.a. Reef Balls, are an innovative solution for providing surface area where oysters can colonize.
The Reef Ball Foundation assisted us in acquiring Reef Ball Molds to install in our future oyster reef.