Abstract:

Spatio-temporal changes in the shell and soft tissue growth of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, were determined in a shallow subtropical estuary, the Mission-Aransas Estuary, Texas. Seed oysters were placed in mesh bags at four locations characterized by different salinities. Shell length, shell weight and soft tissue weight were measured monthly for nine months, from November 2010 to August 2011, including the spawning seasons. Ten oysters were collected monthly at each station and water salinity and temperature were measured. In the laboratory, oysters were rinsed clean, measured with a caliper (± 0.01 mm) and then dissected to separate the soft tissue from the shell. Gonad presence was determined visually. Shells and soft tissues were dried for 72 hours at 60 °C before measuring dry weights (± 0.001 g). Dataset is associated with this publication: Lebreton, B., Pollack, J., Blomberg, B., Palmer, T., & Montagna, P. (2021). Oyster growth across a salinity gradient in a shallow, subtropical Gulf of Mexico estuary—ERRATUM. Experimental Results, 2, E13. doi:10.1017/exp.2021.3.

Suggested Citation:

Lebreton, Benoit, Jennifer Beseres Pollack, Brittany Blomberg, Terence A. Palmer, and Paul A. Montagna. 2020. Oyster growth in a shallow subtropical estuary (Mission-Aransas Estuary, Texas, USA) 2010-11-24 to 2011-08-17. Distributed by: GRIIDC, Harte Research Institute, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi. doi:10.7266/AC120KMV

Publications:

Lebreton, B., Beseres Pollack, J., Blomberg, B., Palmer, T. A., & Montagna, P. A. (2021). Oyster growth across a salinity gradient in a shallow, subtropical Gulf of Mexico estuary. Experimental Results, 2. https://doi.org/10.1017/exp.2020.72

Purpose:

The purpose of generating this data was to determine the growth of the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, in the field under different salinity conditions.

Data Parameters and Units:

Date (DDMonYYYY), days, station (1, 2, 3, 4), latitude and longitude (decimal degrees), replicate, shell length (mm), shell dry weight (g), tissue dry weight (g), salinity (PSU), water temperature (degree Celsius), gonad presence (Yes/no), oyster mortality rate (% of individuals.d-1).

Methods:

One UV-resistant polyethylene mesh bag (80 × 50 cm, 1 cm mesh) containing approximately 100 seed oysters (shell dry weight 8.2 ± 2.2 g, soft tissue dry weight 0.2 ± 0.1 g, mean ± standard deviation) was mounted horizontally at 50 to 100 cm from the sediment at four different stations along the salinity gradient of the MAE. Ten oysters from each station were removed from each bag and water temperature and salinity were measured monthly from November 2010 to August 2011, which included the typical seasonal oyster spawning periods. Shells and soft tissues were dried for 72 hours at 60 °C before measuring dry weights. The presence or absence of gonadal material was determined visually using the naked eye.

Provenance and Historical References:

This dataset was initially published on 2020-10-12 and was revised again on 2020-10-27. A new tab "Mortality_Rate" was added to the file that lists the mortality rate of oysters. The dataset now includes both the originally published (labeled 'Version_1') file as well as the revised version (labeled 'Version_2').

Individual Files: