You are here:
INFLUENCE OF SALINITY ON HABITAT UTILIZATION OF OYSTER REEFS BY RESIDENT FISHES AND DECAPOD CRUSTACEANS IN THE CALOOSAHATCHEE ESTUARY, FLORIDA.
Citation:
Tolley, S. G., A. K. Volety, J. A. Farineau, M. W. Chichester, AND J T. Winstead. INFLUENCE OF SALINITY ON HABITAT UTILIZATION OF OYSTER REEFS BY RESIDENT FISHES AND DECAPOD CRUSTACEANS IN THE CALOOSAHATCHEE ESTUARY, FLORIDA. Presented at 6th Internat'l Conference on Shellfish Restoration, Charleston, SC, Nov 20-24, 2002.
Description:
A spatiotemporal comparison of habitat suitability of oyster reefs for fishes and decapod crustaceans was conducted for the lower Caloosahatchee Estuary, Florida. Lift nets (1-m2) containing 5 liters (volume displacement) of oyster clusters were deployed monthly at three sites along the salinity gradient. Organism abundance was highest during the wet season (July-October) and was positively correlated with water temperature and negatively correlated with salinity. Abundance was also highest upstream where reefs exhibited significantly greater densities of living oysters. Although species richness was positively correlated with water temperature, species diversity (H') was positively related to salinity. Both richness and diversity were significantly higher downstream. Organism biomass varied positively with temperature but was not related to salinity; biomass did not vary significantly among stations. At the station farthest downstream, additional lift nets containing either no oyster shell (control) or dead, articulated shell were deployed periodically alongside those nets containing live oyster clusters. Analysis of variance indicates that treatments with articulated oyster shell exhibited greater species richness than the control. Furthermore, organism abundance was higher for treatments containing articulated shell compared to the control (19.4 ? 5.7 organisms), and was marginally higher for the treatment containing living oyster clusters (87 ? 4.6 organisms) compared to that containing clusters of dead, but articulated shell (72 ? 5.7 organisms). Our results suggest that salinity plays a significant role in structuring resident oyster-reef communities in southwest Florida estuaries, and that restoration efforts should be coordinated with water management practices regulating freshwater input into these systems.