Effect of inundation time on oyster spat settlement and do these effect in settlement stage affect oyster performance during later culture stages?
Traditionally oysters are grown on-bottom plots or off-bottom in structures such as baskets or bags. Input resource for the oyster culture cycle are oyster seeds originating from hatchery farmed spat or natural collected spat fall. This spat is collected from empty mussel shells, placed on bottom plots for that purpose, or from oyster spat collectors. Collectors that are most widely used are artificial caps made from plastic and especially developed to collect oyster spat. Oyster spat collectors are places on intertidal flats before the natural oyster spat fall. Spat fall is following the spawning season which is from May till August in the Eastern Scheldt. After spawning, oyster larvae develop for several weeks in the water column after which they will settle on a suitable substrate and at a suitable location. For this project we want to focus on the effect of inundation time on spat settlement. We focus on the amount of spat settled, on the growth and on the survival of oyster spat on spat collectors as a function of inundation time. After collecting the spat from the oyster spat collectors we want to test how inundation time in the settlement stage affects the performance of the oysters in baskets in the off-bottom oyster culture at the same inundation time.
Research type: desk study, sampling & experiments (HZ, Vlissingen)
Research level: minor/internship (BSc.)
Perquisite: preferably affinity with biology, analytical skills, driving license
Partners: Local shellfish farmers, national and international knowledge partners
Researcher involved: research group aquaculture (Eva Hartog & Jacob Capelle)
