Keepin' It Green: RESTORING OYSTERS TO NEW YORK WATERS: DREAM OR REALITY? part 3

SoMAS: School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON-Spring 2011 Public Lecture Series with Dr. Jeffrey Levinton:Distinguished Professor-Department of Ecology and Evolution-Stony Brook University "RESTORING OYSTERS TO NEW YORK WATERS: DREAM OR REALITY?": Oysters were once a part of New York's pantry and culture, but overfishing, habitat alteration, and pollution wiped them out by the 1920's in New York Harbor, and oysters disappeared from many other bays on the south shore of Long Island. The dream of the return of the oyster has begun a journey along a stony road. Some have claimed that oysters simply cannot be restored as natural reef habitats. In our region, many former areas vital to oyster reefs are very different than they once were and it is not even clear that there are many sources of planktonic larvae to replenish artificial reefs. I'll try to give the good news with some of the bad, telling of some natural sites where larvae are settling and others where they are simply missing. Our research shows that oysters can grow vigorously in the darnedest places, but will they perform all of the ecosystem miracles that we think can happen? Can they sweep clean an ecological mess that we have been making for a century?"

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Science & Technology

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