Website

http://www.gtmnerr.org/

Region(s)

NE

Summary

Given the importance of oysters in estuarine ecosystems, it is the goal of the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTM NERR) to understand the status of local oyster populations and the reef habitats they build, and to track changes over time. The purpose of this living document is to record and share oyster monitoring protocols as they develop. Methods were developed for use on intertidal reefs of Crassostrea virginica using the following body of work as general guidance: Baggett (2014), Dix (2010), Volety & Savarese (2001). Original applications of these methods are documented in a report summarizing a pilot oyster monitoring project within the GTM NERR conducted from 2014-2016 (available upon request).

Parameters

number and sizes of all live oysters, mussels and clams (mm), numbers and ID of barnacles, crabs and gastropods present, carapace width (mm), rugosity (chain length - linear length), percent cover (point intercept method), reef height (m), oyster clump density (#/m^2)

Notes

Application

Publications

Start

2014

End

Current

Frequency

Semiannual

Method

Sampling of randomly-selected reefs using randomly positioned quadrats along a transect. Quadrats positioned randomly along a transect line on each reef. Percent cover assessed using 1m x 1m quadrats and point-intercept method; samples for oyster measurements and faunal census taken using a 25cm x 25cm quadrat and excavated to 15cm depth.

Discontinuity

Data from 2018 were added because they were collected in association with the Historical Oyster Body Size Project; 2020 data were collected in association with another project

Data Location

GTMNERR

Data Format

xlsx, docx, pdf

Habitats

Oyster/Oyster Reef

Recommended Citation

Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP); Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection (RCP); Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve (GTMNERR). (2020). Guana Tolomato Matanzas NERR Oyster monitoring. Updated 03/12/2021. Distributed by: SEACAR Data Discovery Interface, Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection, Florida Department of Environmental Protection. https://dev.seacar.waterinstitute.usf.edu/programs/details/4000.

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