Tech can help monitor oyster industry health
11/23/14
A new research tool launched this week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is allowing scientists to better track changes in ocean chemistry along the U.S. West Coast.
The tool provides real-time ocean acidification data along the coast and in some protected bays. It captures data from a couple dozen sensors installed at shellfish farms and hatcheries and other monitoring sites in Oregon, Washington, California, Alaska and Hawaii.
University of Washington oceanographer Jan Newton, who led the collaborative effort, said the information can help shellfish growers make crucial decisions about when and how to grow shellfish.
“That’s a really big thing, to enable shellfish growers to have better information so they can adapt to ocean acidification,” Newton said Friday.
The website data tool also serves as an early warning system about ocean acidification. Acidification is caused when oceans absorb carbon-dioxide emissions, mostly from the atmosphere. Research has shown souring seas have damaged certain marine organisms such as oysters and corals.
Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation & Conservation District Commissioner and Coast Seafoods Operations Manager Greg Dale said the monitoring of ocean acidification is particularly important for oyster hatcheries. Larval oysters in the hatcheries and in the wild absorb calcium carbonate — the most common being in the form of calcite and aragonite — to build their shells, but an increase in acidification reduces the saturation of these crucial compounds in the water.
“(Aragonite) is the easiest one to get out of the water, but it is one the most susceptible to any change in ocean pH,” Dale said. “With a lower pH, meaning it’s more acidic, it’s more difficult to accumulate that aragonite. They need to expend more energy or may not be able to at certain levels of pH. As the pH drops, it becomes less available to them to build shells.”
Other devices have been invented to gauge the effects of ocean acidification, including one known as the Beta Burkelator, named after Dr. Burke Hales of Oregon State University. The Burkelator measures for the concentration of aragonite in the water.
Humboldt Bay currently has a Burkelator, but no oyster hatcheries, Dale said.
“They look like a Rube Goldberg device or something out of NASA. They are extremely sensitive,” he said. “They have to have water pumped through them continuously. We have one for Humboldt Bay. The problem is we don’t have a hatchery here. Not yet. Currently Hog Island Oyster Co. is building a hatchery here. ... We didn’t a want to miss the opportunity to get this piece of equipment.”
Federal, tribal and state governments, private companies, nonprofit organizations and others have combined forces to monitor ocean acidification.
The data will come from a number of sensors installed at sites, including the Seattle Aquarium, the Alutiiq Pride Shellfish Hatchery in Alaska, Hog Island Oyster Co. in Central California and the Whiskey Creek Shellfish hatchery in Oregon.
