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CAN OYSTERS PLAY A ROLE IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT?
Citation:
FISHER, W. S. CAN OYSTERS PLAY A ROLE IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT? Presented at Gulf of Mexico Symposium 2000, Mobile, AL, April 09 - 12, 2000.
Impact/Purpose:
Conference abstract
Description:
The culinary and commercial value of oysters is widely recognized but, until recently, their ecological importance has been largely overlooked. Field and laboratory studies have begun to explore how filter-feeding and reef building by oysters can influence nutrient cycling, biodiversity, and estuarine hydrology, each of which display some positive attribute for ecosystem condition. Evaluation of these attributes for a particular estuary will require that we monitor changes in the number of living oysters, their filtration rates, and the size, shape and location of oyster reefs. Still, these measures do not respond quickly to environmental stressors, and deleterious change may be recorded too late to alter a course of degradation. Based on recent studies, a biomarker is proposed to alert environmental managers to stressors before oyster survival is affected. Density and activity of hemocytes in oyster hemolymph has been found to be a comparatively reliable measure of oyster response to xenobiotic contaminants and possibly other stresses. A variety of hematological and physiological measurements were compared to contaminant tissue concentrations of oysters from five bays in Florida, and greater hemocyte density and activity were consistently associated with higher contaminant concentrations. Relatively frequent use of these simple biomarkers, coupled with measurements on oyster reefs will provide tools relevant to evaluation of ecosystem condition.