This research is part of the Save Barnegat Bay Student Grant Program with funding from the RCTB Lou Fellner Memorial Fund.
RCTB has been growing shellfish at 10 or more locations in the Barnegat Bay Estuary since 2005. Shellfish including: clams, scallops, oysters, and mussels are affected in many ways by the food that they are able to filter out of the water. RCTB members have noticed different growth rates at various locations. Shellfish food or “nutrition” is primarily phytoplankton. Phytoplankton can be many different species of microscopic organisms floating in the water. This project sets out to investigate the types of nutritional content available to the shellfish raised by RCTB in the bayside nurseries called upwellers.
Objective: The goal of the project is twofold; 1) is to establish a procedure to gather information now and into the future. 2) In this first year, gather data about the nutritional condition of the water at the various locations by taking samples in order to identify some of the algae found in the water. The information will then be assembled into a “layman’s” report to be presented to the RCTB members to help them manage their stock of shellfish.
This link contains the data gathered from the samples
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