8 14 14 Oyster Bay Repro Check

Shelton WA

Mid 60's to low 70s mostly cloudy

Performed the anesthesia SOP with insulation on the treatment tub. Weather permitted me to not have to use a tarp or ice blocks. There were no brooders in any population. This is due to the incredibly high innundation of mussels. I cleaned off 95% of the mussel and barnacle mass on the trays and oysters. Hopefully this will allow the animals to feed and reproduce freely. The fouling mass that I removed weighed almost 20 lbs. It was quite impressive. I suggest checking this tray again in September as well as having a general clean up for the other two trays since there would be a lot of mussels on them as well. Surprisingly there were no dead animals as well. I assume the mussels just inhibited reproduction but not feeding. Also relaunched the hobo logger that I thought was possibly damaged. It works fine as of Tuesday (8/12)  so we'll check it in the future.

Numbers as follow.

Temps in C

Pretreatment
Initial       13
45           14
1.5          15

Treatment
Initial       11
45           10
1.5          11
2.25        11

Recovery
Initial       15
45           17
1.5          18


Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment     27
Treatment         72
Recovery          27


Brood Collection

1H1-4
Brood    0
Gaping   59
Dead      0
Closed   6

1S13-16
Brood    0
Gaping   65
Dead      0
Closed   5

1N5-8
Brood     0
Gaping    52
Dead      0
Closed    0

Pics have tube label and calipers on tile with closed animals. All other tiles are gaping.

This is what a summer of field work does to new boots.

8 7 2014 Oyster Bay repro check

Shelton wa

Mid 60s to low 80s sunny

Performed the anesthesia sop with insulation on treatment tub and ice blocks on treatment and tarp cover on the Pretreatment and recovery tubs. It appears that the mussels have a significant effect on brooding as today's trays were less cover or not covered at all compared to last weeks. I saw a substantial number of brooders in the southern pop and a few in the northern and dabob pop.  We could almost assume that the other trays should be brooding in the same number as the "clean trays". We'll find out next week if the cleaning job I did last week helped out.

Numbers as follow:

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.    15
45.       15
1.5.       18

Treatment
Initial.     13
45.        14
1.5.         13
2.25.      12

Recovery
Initial.      14
45.         15
1.5.          18

Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment.        25
Treatment.            55
Recovery.             27

Brood collection

1H9-12
Brood.    2
Gaping.   80
Dead.      0
Closed.    6

Brooders
#    size.    Sick
1.     29.       W
2.    31.        W

1S1-4
Brood.      10
Gaping.     80
Dead.        0
Closed.     1

Brooders
#     size.    Sick
1.      30.      W
2.     34.       W
3.     31.        Grey
4.     33.       W
5.    35.       W
6.    27.        W
7.    29.         W
8.    26.        Grey
9.    25.         W
10.   25.        W

1N9-12
Brood.    3
Gaping.   71
Dead.     0
Closed.   7

Brooders
#   size.   Sick
1.    28.      Grey
2.   30.      W
3.   37.       W

Pics have brooders between tube and calipers. Closed on same tile gapers on other three tiles.

7 31 2014 oyster bay repro check

Kamilche shores, wa

Hi 60s to low 80s sunny

Participants: Sean Bennett and Jake heare

Performed anesthesia sop with insulation on treatment tub and ice blocks on recovery tubs.  Found very few brooders again. I think it is a stack effect due to the unholy amounts of mussels set on the trays and oysters. Tried to clean them off but too many. Mussels probably consuming all sperm in water column.

Numbers as follow

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.       17
45.          18
1.5.           22

Treatment
Initial.      15
45.         14
1.5.         15
2.25.       16

Recovery
Initial.     18
45.         20
1.5.         21

Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment.      26
Treatment.         60
Recovery.           27

Brood collection

1N5-8
Brood.      1
Gaping.     50
Dead.        0
Closed.      0

Brooders
#   size.   Sick
1.     30.     W.    Partial sample due to spillage.

1S13-16
Brood.    0
Gaping.   70
Dead.      0
Closed.    2

1H1-4
Brood.      1
Gaping.     59
Dead.        2
Closed.     8

Brooders
#     size.   Sick
1.       32.      Grey

7 24 2014. Oyster bay repro check

Oyster bay wa

High 60s to low 70s partly cloudy

Performed the anesthesia sop with insulation on treatment tub and a tarp on the Pretreatment and recovery tubs. Brooding back to normal with most brooders in southern pop, and equal numbers between north and dabob. Also crab fresh cleaning salt water lines used their water for Pretreatment but not for recovery because pump was shut down.

Numbers as follow
Temps in c

Pretreatment
Initial.    15
45.        15
1.5.        15

Treatment
Initial.    12
45.        12
1.5.        12
2.25.     13

Recovery
Initial.    13
45.        13
1.5.        14

Brood collection

1S1-4
Brood.      8
Gaping.     75
Dead.        4
Closed.     7

Brooders
#    size.    Sick
1.      24.      W
2.     34.       W
3.     30.       W
4.     30.      W
5.     30.      W
6.     25.      W
7.     26.      W
8.     27.       W

1N9-12
Brood.       3
Gaping.     68
Dead.        0
Closed.      10

Brooders
#     size.     Sick
1.      33.        W
2.     28.        W
3.     30.        W

1H9-12
Brood.     4
Gaping.    72
Dead.       4
Closed.    6

Brooders
#      size.      Sick
1.        25.        W
2.       26.        W
3.       28.        W
4.       25.        W.    No sample.

Also pics are of whole tray. Brooders between tube and calipers or bag. Closed same time outside of brooders. Rest are gapers.

7 17 2014 oyster bay repro

Oyster bay

High 60s to high 70s

Participants:  alicia Godersky and Jake heare

Performed anesthesia sop with insulation on treatment and tarp with ice blocks on recovery tubs. Very heavy mussel set on all trays and oysters. Possibly causing spawning issues. Only one population had brooders which is very different than in previous weeks. The one pop was the dabob pop with 5 brooders, one of which looked like aborted spawn.

Numbers as follow.

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.   16
45.      18
1.5.       18

Treatment
Initial.     13
45.         14
1.5.         14
2.25.       14

Recovery
Initial.      16
45.          16
1.5.          17

Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment.       24
Treatment.           66
Recovery.            25

Brood collection
1S13-16.        
Brood.     0
Gaping.     75
Dead.       1
Closed.     2

1N5-8
Brood.      0
Gaping.     48
Dead.        1
Closed.      1

1H1-4
Brood.      5. 
Gaping.     68
Dead.        6
Closed.      1

Brooders
#     size.    Sick
1.       30.      W
2.       20.     W
3.       26.      W
4.       26.      W
5.       27.      W. Possibly abort spawn.

7 10 2014 oyster bay repro check

Klamiche shores, wa

Hi 60s to low 80s

Performed the anesthesia sop with insulation and ice blocks on treat. I also covered the Pretreatment and recovery tubs with a tarp to shade them from direct sun to help moderate the water temps. It worked well along with adding fresh seawater and leftover ice blocks, keeping the trays within 3 degrees of ambient. Also I broke the one day record for number of brooders. All pops had multiple brooders with the northern pop almost being equal to the southern pop in terms of numbers. Dabob pop also performed very well. I think this has to do with last week's neap tide and the much warmer than average air temps.

Numbers as follow.

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.        16
45.              16
1.5.             16

Treatment
Initial.         14
45.               14
1.5.              13
2.25.            12

Recovery
Initial.          16
45.               17
1.5.               17

Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment.     25
Treatment.          65
Recovery.            24

Brood collection

1N9-12
Brood.      8
Gaping.    73
Dead.        3
Closed.     2

Brooders
#     size.     Sick
1.     30.        W
2.     22.        W  no sample, very few larvae
3.     39.        W
4.     35.        W
5.     31.        W
6.     33.        W
7.     28.        W
8.     32.        W  no sample tile oyster

1H9-12
Brood.       6
Gaping.     83
Dead.         3
Closed.      3

Brooders
#      size.     Sick
1.      27.        W
2.      27.        W.
3.      28.        W
4.      26.        W
5.      26.        W
6.      27.        W

1S1-4
Brood.      10
Gaping.    82
Dead.        0
Closed.     1

Brooders
#        size.       Sick
1.        22.          W
2.        22.          W
3.        25.          W
4.        28.          W
5.        27.          W
6.        27.          W
7.        25.          W
8.        24.          W
9.        30.          W
10.      30.          W.  No sample, tile oyster

7 3 2014 oyster bay repro check

Shelton, wa

Mid 60s to high 70s cloudy mostly till 2 pm then sunny

Performed the anesthesia sop with insulation on treatment. No ice blocks needed. Found no brooders in North pop but 3 in dabob. Lots still from south sound pop.

Numbers as follow

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.      15
45.            15
1.5.           16

Treatment
Initial.       11
45.             10
1.5.            11
2.25.          11

Recovery
Initial.     16
45.           19
1.5.           22 sun came out. Kept adding water.

Salinity in ppt
Pretreatment.       25
Treatment.            73
Recovery.              26

Brood collection
1N5-8
Brood.    0
Gaping.   49
Dead.      0
Closed.    1

1H1-4
Brood.       3
Gaping.     66
Dead.         4
Closed.      4

Brooders
#          size.      Sick
1.          25.         W
2.          26.          Grey
3.          25.          W

1S13-16
Brood.     9
Gaping.   78
Dead.      0
Closed.    3

Brooders
#       size.        Sick
1.       26.           W
2.       28.           W
3.       26.           W
4.       30.           W
5.       39.           W
6.       25.           W
7.       28.           W
8.       29.           W
9.       25.           W. No larvae collected from 9. Tile oyster.

6 30 2014 June Survivorship Data

Just for toots and googles I worked up the survivorship data from June just to see where we stand number wise out in the field. This comes from the weekly counts of gapers and closed animals which together make up the total number of living animals. These numbers are tentative and will be verified in the future when we do a full scale work up of the samples in August or September for the annual sample taking.

All numbers are for living animals only.

Oyster Bay	N	H	S
1-4	73	86	97
5-8	63	56	0
9-12	85	97	1
13-16	0	12	93
Total	221	251	191
Manchester	N	H	S
1-4	90	96	65
5-8	95	92	93
9-12	61	89	98
13-16	87	79	94
Total	333	356	350
Fidalgo	N	H	S
1-4	96	93	93
5-8	97	99	93
9-12	93	87	97
13-16	110	91	87
Total	396	370	370

While there has been a pretty major loss in Oyster Bay, I think we can safely proceed into year 2 with enough animals to get significant data from their development as well as Year 2 reproductive effort. 

Also in previous counts Manchester had the highest survival but is now well below that of Fidalgo. I think this is due to the much warmer sunnier conditions at Manchester which lead to a 10% mortality event in the beginning of May and may continue to cause a small 1-2% mortality each month during repro sampling. 

This info is also really cool when you compare it to the number of Brooders I've found over the course of the season for each population at each site. 

Total Brooders	Manchester	Oyster Bay	Fidalgo
N	1	15	2
H	1	5	0
S	1	32	11
1st brood	6/18/2014	5/29/2014	6/6/2014
		*1N trays were sampled twice in one sample date

Percent brooders from each pop for entirety of sampling period is as follows

Percent Brood	Manchester	Oyster Bay	Fidalgo
N	0.30%	6.79%	0.51%
H	0.28%	1.99%	0.00%
S	0.29%	16.75%	2.97%

So almost 17% of the South Sound population at Oyster Bay has spawned and about 3% of the same population at Fidalgo has spawned. It blows me away that they are nearly 6 times as productive as the Dabob population in their home site but at Manchester they are not significantly different.  Its also cool that they are twice as productive as the Northern population in South sound and almost 5 times more productive at Fidalgo bay. 

Bonnie has suggested to me that the animals taken from Fidalgo for the original broodstock are possibly from a population that is being restored with animals from South Sound. This could be leading to an outbreeding depression with regards to local adaptation in the northern population and the reason the South sound animals are more prolific than the northern pops. 

The other take away from these numbers is that it seems to me that Dabob animals are juggernauts that don't spawn. They have the highest survivorship at two of the sites (though Oyster Bay is arguable due to the many accidental exposure and other mishaps) and are very close to the North Sound populace at Fidalgo. 

Eventually graphing all this with temps and tide times would be helpful to determine any differences in week to week spawn collections. 

6 30 2014 South Sound Survivors

Good NEWS! So after compiling all the survival data from last weeks work up on the lost trays and the weekly counts. I have a current survival totals for the populations in South Sound. They are much better than estimated and almost even across all populations

Pop            Live
North         221
Dabob       251
South         191


Tray Break Down is such:

South Sound
	N	H	S
1-4	73	86	97
5-8	63	56	0
9-12	85	97	1
13-16	0	12	93
Total	221	251	191

6 26 2014 oyster bay repro

Used the modified anesthesia sop with insulation and ice blocks. Collected from the water the lost stack as well as the hhn stack to reshuffle oyster trays. Big things of note, 1 south sound tray was 99% dead. It was a middle tray, had no predators and no fouling. No idea why those animals died but the other two trays in the stack survived. Brooding in all sampled trays seemed to have followed expectations. With no pop with way more or way less brooders than expected. Also collected temp logger info. All trays were kept in ambient seawater during Pretreatment or out plant if not sampled

Lost trays marked with orange ziptie, hhn trays labeled with blue ziptie.

Numbers as follows:

Temps in c

Pretreatment
Initial.       14
45.             14
1.5.            14
2.25.          16

Treatment
Initial.        11
45.              11
1.5.             11
2.25.            9
3.                 8

Recovery
Initial.          13
45.                15
1.5.               16
2.25.             16

Salinity
Pretreatment.         26
Treatment.               68
Recovery.                 24

Trays not used for Brood collection

1S9-12
Live.           1
Dead.         82

1H13-16
Live.          12
Dead.         0

Brood collection

1N1-4. From hhn stack
Brood.       2
Gaping.     72
Dead.         10
Closed.      1

Brooders
#        size.      Sick
1.        25.         W
2.        31.         Grey

(Three previous trays were put out immediately as stack 1. Far left from shore)

1H9-12
Brood.       1
Gaping.      92
Dead.         4
Closed.      1

Brooders
#      size.      Sick
1.      27.          Grey

1S1-4
Brood.       11
Gaping.      85
Dead.          10
Closed.       2

Brooders
#          size.         Sick
1.          29.            W
2.          25.            W
3.          28.            W
4.          30.            W
5.          26.            W
6.          30.            W
7.          25.            W
8.          26.            W
9.          28.            W
10.        31.            W
11.        27.            W

10/11. Were dirty samples, had lots of mud mixed in with larvae.

1N9-12
Brood.          5
Gaping.        84
Dead.            16
Closed.          1

Brooders
#        size.        Sick
1.        31.           W
2.        29.           W
3.        36.           W
4.        28.           W
5.        30.           W

6 19 2014. Oyster bay repro

Shelton WA

Mid 60s to high 70s

Participants: L. Christine savolainen and Jake heare

Followed the repro sop with insulation and ice blocks to control temp. Also collected all morts from all trays. Surprisingly, the dabob pop had no brooders while the south sound pop had 11 brooders.

Numbers as follow.

Temps in c
Pretreatment
Initial.            16
45 min.          18
1.5 hrs.          18

Treatment
Initial.            11
45 min.          11
1.5 hrs.          11
2.25 hrs.        10

Recovery
Initial.      16
45 min.     20
1.5 hrs.      16

Salinity
Pretreatment.       25
Treatment.            63
Recovery.              25

Brood collection

1H1-4
Brood.    0
Gaping.  70
Closed.    9
Dead.        7

1N5-8
Brood.     3
Gaping.   54
Dead.       8
Closed.      1

Brooders
#             size.              Sick
1.             29.                  W
2.             26.                  W
3.             30.                  W

1S13-16
Brooders       11
Gaping.          80
Dead.              12
Closed.           1

Brooders
#             size.               Sick
1.             27.                  W
2.             22.                  W
3.             26.                  W
4.             25.                  W
5.             26.                  W
6.             28.                  W
7.             31.                  W
8.             33.                  W
9.             22.                  W
10.           21.                  W
11.           29.                  W

Number 11 could not have its Brood collected because it was attached to the tray.

Temperature Logger Readings from May to Mid June 2014

Last week I pulled temperature data from the logger pendants out in the field using the Shuttle. Everything performed stellarly and I have the temp graphs on the computer. I'll go by site for each temp graph.

Manchester, WA

From the temperature readings it appears that Manchester has stayed below the 12.5 C mark for most of the logging period. Only recently have temperatures crested the 12.5 mark and stayed that way for several days. It may be soon that the animals will begin spawning and brooding (or spawned within the last week or so). 

Oyster Bay, WA

From this data and the amount of brooders we have seen at Oyster Bay, its clear that temps have been above the 12.5 C mark  since early May. This again correlates with expectations and as temperatures steadily increase I believe we may see a slowing of reproduction due to stress demands. 

Fidalgo Bay, WA

Contrary to the observations in the field, it seems that Fidalgo bay has been much warmer since the beginning of June. Though it does look like in early May there was a warm period for several days. As of June 1st temperatures crested the 12.5 C mark and headed into spawning temps. We saw our first brooder approximately 6 days after that and saw a large number of brooders approximately 12 days after temps went above 12.5. Though temps have somewhat decreased recently I believe we will continue to see spawning across the board.

Overall I think that the populations are responding to temperature cues nicely, though it does seem that North sound respond quickly to temperature increases. The south sound animals seem to have nearly synchronous spawning during warm periods which would be of obvious benefit in South Sound where temps continue to increase and only stay within the spawning window for a short amount of time. The dabob animals seem to have reduced response to temperature cues and do not actively spawn unless temps are somewhat stable for a duration of time. 

6 12 2014 oyster bay repro

Shelton wa

Mid 60s partly cloudy to rainy

Participants:  L. Christine savolainen  and Jake heare

Used anesthesia sop with insulation and semi frozen ice blocks. No change in Temps the entire time. Weather definitely helped. Found several more brooders. Some were below the 20 mm mark.

***Update*** I forgot to mention that I also jumped in the water today during lowtide and hunted underneath the docks to find the lost stack of trays. I was unable to find them. I used a 6 ft pole to feel underneath the lower parts of the dock as well as grab items I found. I pulled out half a dozen shell bags and 1 set of oyster growout cages. Our stacks are long gone. It might be possible to search further under the docks with a diver but I couldn't risk my safety going any further under the docks. At this point in time, its probably safe to assume that we will be unable to ever recover the missing trays. 

Numbers as follow:

Temps
Pretreatment
Initial.  15
45 min. 15
1.5 hrs.   15

Treatment
Initial.       13
45 min.      13
1.5 hrs.      13
2.25 hrs.     13

Recovery
Initial.        13
45 min.       13
1.5 hrs.        13

Salinity.
Pretreatment.        26
Treatment.              64
Recovery.               26

Brood collection
1S13-16
Brood.    3
Gaping.   63
Dead.       11
Closed.     6

Brooders.    
#          size.           Sick
1.            27.            W
2.            26.              W
3.            19.             W

1N5-8
Brood.      2
Gaping      48
Dead.        8
Closed.     1

Brooders
#               size.            Sick
1.                32.               Grey
2.                20.              W

1H1-4
Brood.         1
Gaping.       86
Dead.            8
Closed.         1

Brooders
#         size.          Sick
1.         19.             W

Many males with semen in all treatments.