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Oyster Reef Ecology | On the Reef

Day 4: October Oyster Push “Sweet Boat”

by Rob Diaz de Villegas October 26, 2010
by Rob Diaz de Villegas October 26, 2010 2 comments
Rob Diaz de Villegas WFSU-TV
David Kimbro’s crew has been split into two teams, the Net/Trap team (N/T) and the Tile team (TI). For a closer look at how David’s team nets and traps larger fish and crabs, click here. To learn more about what the Tile team will be doing, click here. And if you click On the Reef under categories in the sidebar, you can track David’s progress over the course of this study.

Monday, October 25- Both teams in Saint Augustine

P1010782_1

That grey spot (dead center) on the shell is spat. After landing on existing shells, they'll build their own and expand the clump.

IGOR chip- biogeographic 150When I got to St. Augustine, David was chiseling out shards of shell containing oyster spat (baby oysters) from clumps so that he could glue them onto tiles, as he described in Friday’s post.  I got a good look at what spat actually was.  You can see it in the photo here, basically a small oyster with no shell, seeking out a hard surface (often another oyster’s shell) upon which to settle.  David stayed behind doing that as the rest of his crew, and our crew, piled into the boat for this evening’s activities.

This new experiment- placing tiles with the same number of oyster recruits at all sites on every reef across the study- will give them a more precise picture of how young oysters survive at each site.  It also means a lot of extra work, as the spat that goes on the tiles has to be from the specific location to be entirely accurate- spat is harvested one day, immediately chiseled off and made into tiles and placed on the reef, in the span of about two days.  And this is in addition to the other sampling and trapping.  The previous tile method worked fairly well for the NC and SC/GA teams, but for the sake of being consistent, they’ve also had to adapt this method (while cursing David Kimbro’s name).

P1010846_1

Crown conchs in St. Augustine making a snack of an oyster.

As previously noted on this blog, the reefs did have plenty of crown conchs crawling on them.  David and Tanya have also started noticing Atlantic Oyster Drills, a smaller snail we don’t see in the Gulf.  I’ll look for some tomorrow and get a photo or two up.

8:00 AM– Hanna and Randall (N/T team) retrieved the nets that they set last night in Cedar Key.  This is low tide work, as that’s when it’s best to empty the nets.  They got to their first reef after the vultures did, losing a bit of their catch but still able to identify some species from the fish heads left behind.

1:00 PM– Hanna headed to Saint Augustine and Randall headed home.  As Hanna was gassing up the truck and boat, an elderly gentlemen circled the boat, in awe of David’s creation.  Eventually, he said, “sweet boat.”

P1010640

A sweet boat.

5:00 PM– Deploy nets, take water samples, and reference water level.  The two teams combined activities that would have kept them out past dark, and finished just as the sun was setting.  They then helped David glue spat onto tiles for another hour or so before heading out to dinner.

P1010861_1

That was the day.  As you see, field work involves a lot of rethinking (as in the tile experiment), thinking on your feet, dealing with circumstances (vultures eating your catch), and coming up with unusual solutions (refitting your boat in a way some might find strange).  It’s pretty late now (as I type this, even though I plan to post this in the morning).  Time to head to bed so that I can get up and shoot that sunrise.

Tide Times and height (ft.) for Cedar Key, October 24, 2010
Low- 10:oo AM (-0.3)
Tide Times and height (ft.) for Saint Augustine, October 25, 2010
High- 1:35 PM (5.3)
Low- 8:41 PM (0.6)

We’d love to hear from you! Leave your comments and questions below:

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biogeographicCedar Keycoastal ecologycrown conchFlorida State UniversityFSU Coastal and Marine Labmarine biologymarine ecologyNational Science FoundationNSFoysteroyster bedoyster reefoyster spatroctoberpushSaint Augustine
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Rob Diaz de Villegas

Rob Diaz de Villegas is a senior producer for WFSU-TV, covering outdoors and ecology. After years of producing the music program OutLoud, Rob found himself in a salt marsh with a camera, and found a new professional calling as well. That project, the National Science Foundation funded "In the Grass, On the Reef," spawned the award winning WFSU Ecology Blog. Now in its tenth year, the Ecology Blog recently wrapped its most ambitious endeavor, the EcoCitizen Project. Rob is married with two young sons, who make a pretty fantastic adventure squad.

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Day 5: October Oyster Push- A Change of Plans

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2 comments

Jack October 27, 2010 - 8:50 am

Are you guys working out of UF’s Whitney Lab or with GTMNERR?

Rob October 27, 2010 - 9:12 am

We’re at the Whitney Lab, but some of the crew is staying at NERR.

Comments are closed.

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Florida milkvetch

Florida milkvetch (Astragalus obcordatus) in the Munson Sandhills

When I test out a new camera, I usually head to a random spot in the Munson Sandhills and take a series of videos and photos. This small flower caught my eye, as almost nothing was in bloom. I identified it as Florida milkvetch (Astragalus obcordatus) in iNaturalist, and it was confirmed.
I then saw a photo of this plant in a Facebook group for native plant enthusiasts. It turns out this is kind of a rare plant, and one botanist went so far as to classify it as imperiled. It pays to keep your eyes down by your feet when walking in the sandhills.

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iNaturalist

iNaturalist became a part of the WFSU Ecology Blog during the EcoCitizen Project in 2019.  Since then, we’ve used it to help identify the many plants and animals we see on our shoots.  And on the Backyard Blog, we show how it can be used to identify weeds and garden insects, to help figure out what’s beneficial or a possible pest.  Below is the iNaturalist profile belonging to WFSU Ecology producer Rob Diaz de Villegas.

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