By Alee Knoell Oysters, lately they seem to be the belle of the estuary. But hey, it’s a well deserved title- they do quite a lot! And with oyster monitoring back in full swing, they are getting even more attention here at the reserve. With accessibility often requiring battling nor’easter winds and sinking as low…
Category: On the Reef
Oyster Spat: Reflecting on 2019
BY ALEE KNOELL If you are familiar with this blog, you are likely familiar with the grand journey of the oyster as well. How after weeks and weeks of floating through the water column, the microscopic oyster larvae find themselves a surface they deem worthy enough to make permanent residence. Subsequent to this attachment, the…
A big little deal
By Alee Knoell It’s National Oyster Day! For most of us, this may simply mean one-dollar oysters at your favorite seafood restaurant. But, although the saying goes “It’s what’s on the inside that counts”, the oysters edible insides aren’t their only noteworthy attribute. It’s likely that we’ve all at least seen an oyster, be it…
“What’s that do?”: Measuring water quality on oyster reefs
By Adrienne Breef-Pilz, Guest Writer Earlier, our lab wrote a post about working in the GTMNERR where we are looking at nonconsumptive effects on oyster reefs. Additionally, we are collecting data on the survival and the growth of the oysters at nine different sites within the reserve. We do this by looking at how oysters…
Nonconsumptive Effects: a story of oysters and mud crabs
Happy almost Thanksgiving, NERRds! We are so thankful for all the opportunities we have and the people that are in our NERRd-y lives. The collaborative projects we are able to work on at the GTM Research Reserve have allowed us to interact with so many different people from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines that…
A field day with Flagler College
By Shannon Dunnigan This past weekend research and stewardship NERRds at the GTMNERR had a great field day leading Flagler College students out to the GTMNERR’s Wright’s Landing artificial reef site where students assisted in collecting measurements on the percent cover of live oysters and dimensions for each of the 28 individual artificial reefs. …
The experiment
Grab your coffee and enjoy the second installment of a two-part series written by guest writer, Madison Toonder. She continues with her investigation into the effects of sunscreen on oysters. If you missed her first post (or it has been awhile since you read it) in which she discusses how she got started on her project,…
Spat, Life After the Journey
By Mathew Monroe and Nikki Dix For the past few years on the first week of each month with good morning low tides, we have taken a 20-mile boat ride throughout GTM NERR to track settlement of oyster spat. Spat is the stage of an oyster’s life cycle at which the mobile journey as larvae…
What oysters have to say
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds. This is cross-posted from her very own blog, themeanderingscientist.com, which is wonderfully NERRd-y and entertaining-be sure to check it out! Carrie hails from New England where she spent a lot of time as a kid poking around tide pools. It prompted her to…
How Madison got started
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the first in a series about an investigation into the effects of sunscreen on oysters conducted by Madison Toonder. Madison is a 10th grader from FL who attends Stanford University Online High School. She aspires to be an exotic/marine animal veterinarian…
The sessile oyster has footprints?
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the last installment in a five part series on oyster stories of northeast Florida. Kaitlyn Dietz is currently the Coastal Training Program Specialist at the GTM Research Reserve. Kaitlyn attended Georgia College and State University for her B.S. degree in Biology (2012)….
Local oysters and clams taste better
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the fourth in a five part series on oyster stories of northeast Florida! Be sure to look out for more! Kaitlyn Dietz is currently the Coastal Training Program Specialist at the GTM Research Reserve. Kaitlyn attended Georgia College and State University for her…
Collaboration in mapping and monitoring of Florida’s oysters
By Silas Tanner & Nikki Dix The first Oyster Integrated Mapping and Monitoring Program (OIMMP) meeting was held February 23-24 at the GTMNERR. OIMMP, which is led by the FWRI Coastal Wetlands Group, aims to inventory oyster mapping and monitoring programs around the state, enhance communication among practitioners, identify data gaps, and initiate pilot-scale mapping…
Knowing where the “good” oysters are
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the third in a five part series on oyster stories of northeast Florida! Be sure to look out for more! Kaitlyn Dietz is currently the Coastal Training Program Specialist at the GTM Research Reserve. Kaitlyn attended Georgia College and State University for…
Serving Oysters to Henry Flagler
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the second in a five part series on oyster stories of northeast Florida! Be sure to look out for more! Kaitlyn Dietz is currently the Coastal Training Program Specialist at the GTM Research Reserve. Kaitlyn attended Georgia College and State University for…
Oh, shucks! He graduated.
By Shannon Dunnigan Today, our System-Wide Monitoring Program technician and NERRd, Silas Tanner, graduates from the University of North Florida. He recently finished up a project he started last summer investigating the impacts of oyster harvesting on shell availability for larval settlement. There is concern about the sustainability of the oyster fishery given that harvesting…
Oyster Stories of Northeast Florida
The following is a post from a guest writer to the NERRds! This is the first in a five part series on oyster stories of northeast Florida! Be sure to look out for those! Kaitlyn Dietz is currently the Coastal Training Program Specialist at the GTM Research Reserve. Kaitlyn attended Georgia College and State University for…
Why oysters?
By Silas Tanner, Nikki Dix, Pam Marcum, & Shannon Dunnigan Long-term monitoring of oyster populations is a big project at the GTM. If you have driven over any of the bridges in northeast Florida at low tide, you know how expansive our oyster reefs are. Here locally we have intertidal oyster reefs, which means that…
NERRds on the Water 