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Eastern Oyster; Crassostrea Virginica; Population Demographics; Mortality; Recruitment; Shell Budgets; Great Wicomico River
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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica, Gmelin 1791) Population Dynamics On Public Reefs In The Great Wicomico River, Virginia, Usa, Melissa Southworth, Juliana M. Harding, James A. Wesson, Roger L. Mann
Oyster (Crassostrea Virginica, Gmelin 1791) Population Dynamics On Public Reefs In The Great Wicomico River, Virginia, Usa, Melissa Southworth, Juliana M. Harding, James A. Wesson, Roger L. Mann
VIMS Articles
We describe oyster population trends in the Great Wicomico River, VA, from 2000 through 2009 using quantitative fishery independent survey data collected using a stratified random design. The seven public reefs examined cover a total of 2.8 X 10(5) m(2) and vary in individual size from 1.36 X 10(4) to 7.16 X 10(4) m(2). The river is functionally divided by a sand spit into upriver and downriver regions. Oyster densities on the upriver reefs were typically an order of magnitude higher than densities on the downriver reefs within the same time period. Throughout the system, the highest observed densities were …