The Status of North American Oyster Research

This week, as promised, I want to talk about oyster research in North America as a precursor to my conference talk. There are more than 200 species of oysters across the world, but only five that are commercially grown and harvested within the United States: the Pacific oyster, the eastern oyster, the Kumamoto oyster, the Olympia oyster (although really two species), and the European flat oyster. While many value the oyster because of its taste, these bivalves perform really important functions in coastal ecosystems. They absorb wave energy and protect shorelines, the serve as habitats for a variety of marine life, they play important roles in cycling nutrients and as food for larger predators, and they are exceptional filter feeders. The eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, is native from southeastern Canada all the way to the southern Gulf of Mexico and the earliest commercial eastern oyster fishery was established in the early 1800s within the United States. However, long before settlers established oyster fisheries, indigenous people fished and cultivated oysters across what is now the United States, and there are a lot of great studies that have evaluated the history of the oyster industry and how changes in oyster cultivation practices may be threatening this marine resource.

Oysters face a lot of environmental challenges but are particularly threatened by warming waters and by direct anthropogenic influences like overfishing and reef damage. Warming waters make the oysters susceptible to disease and predation and one of their main predators in the Gulf, the oyster drill (a marine snail), does well in warmer waters. Unfortunately, due to the increased ocean temperatures and other stressors, oyster reefs have decreased in spatial coverage and productivity, especially in the Gulf of Mexico. Across multiple parts of the northern Gulf, the oyster fishery has collapsed, and you may be aware of major news stories about the unexpected collapse of the oyster industry in Apalachicola, Florida or even in Mississippi.

As part of my work, I am evaluating how the collapse of oyster resources in the Mississippi Sound--a portion of the northern Gulf between the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay, Alabama--compares to reports across North America. I have had the opportunity to read about oyster research in Canada, much of the US east coast, the US Gulf coast, and even Mexico and Cuba. Some researchers were interested in harvesting methods to make oysters more delicious, others were interested in harvesting methods to reduce oyster disease that could be transmitted to consumers, and many were interested in how genetic research on oysters can be used to promote oysters that are tolerant of really low salinity levels. I will be presenting my work at a conference next week, and this will be the first time I've given a conference talk that focused on topics other than microplastics and nematodes. It is certainly a different preparation process when you realize that your focal organism is well-known and when you don't have to spend a lot of time explaining why the research is important.

Since I will be at the conference next week, I will not be posting a blog. Stay tuned, though, for the next blog which will be out on Thursday, November 20th!

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