A Restore Our Shores team member collects oysters from the Indian River Lagoon to later analyze its samples.

Our Restore Our Shores conservation team is diving deeper into the issue of oyster reproductive health in the Indian River Lagoon! Our team will launch a study with the goal to help guide ROS and its partners determine the ideal oyster reef locations for future restoration. This study is made possible thanks to a grant from Restore America’s Estuaries with funding from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. 

Oysters are a keystone species that can provide habitat, improve water quality, prevent shoreline erosion, and add a potential food source to the lagoon, said Hope Leonard, our ROS Conservation Restoration Coordinator. They have historically been a vital part of our lagoon ecosystem in Brevard County and key in Indian River Lagoon recovery plans.  

With over harvesting, habitat decline and people-driven pressure on the lagoon, oyster spat (oyster larvae) saw declines in the late 1980’s, therefore decreasing the natural water filtration and reducing nutrient cycling in the lagoon. Over the last 10 years, our ROS team has worked to reduce nutrient pollution in the lagoon by increasing oyster habitat and bolstering oyster populations through our oyster reef building and community-driven oyster gardening program.  

 We’re still seeing a lack of consistent spawning from oysters in the Brevard County lagoon. It’s not fully understood whether oyster reproduction has been limited by local environmental factors or disease – but we hope to learn more in the next year.  

“With this project, we aim to assess the health of the Brevard oyster population and our own gardened oysters,” Hope said.  

Our ROS team will evaluate the rate at which oyster spat, or larvae, settle on oyster shells on a monthly basis. We, along with several partners, will also take a closer look at overall oyster population health by pulling adult samples from the lagoon to look at their overall condition, hemolymph (the invertebrate equivalent to blood) and tissues. We’ll also gather data from the sites’ environment – like air temperature, water temperature, water level, salinity dissolved oxygen and pH – to see if any correlations can be made.  

We collect ten oysters from four different sites across Brevard County each month.

Through this project, we hope to learn more about oyster settlement patterns and their reproductive health in our County.  

“Oyster population health has not been examined recently in the Brevard County area,” Hope said.  “Through this project, we hope to examine whether the oysters here have any underlying health issues that could limit oyster restoration and population in the future.  

“Understanding more about the challenges that this species faces here in Brevard will help ROS and other restoration organizations make informed decisions on future oyster restoration projects and promote actions that may need to be taken to support these keystone species.” 

This study is a part of the Indian River Lagoon Oyster Reproductive Health and Restoration Project. While the research outline above will help future oyster restoration projects, we’ll also be supporting Brevard County’s plan to construct 14.5 acres of oyster reef with this plan. 

We use a needle to pull out a sample of the hemolymph, which is the equivalent to the blood of an oyster.

We’re already ahead on goal one of this project by collecting recycled oyster shell through our Shuck and Share program, which solicits restaurants, seafood festivals and shellfish distributors to collect discarded oyster shells for us to use in our reef-building projects.  

Our ROS team has also started constructing half an acre (21,780 sq. ft.) of oyster habitat in the Brevard County portion of the lagoon this year. The results of this oyster reef habitat will hopefully give us additional context to our oyster reproductive health study. This reef, like all reefs constructed through the Brevard County’s Save Our Indian River Lagoon Project Plan, will be evaluated for success for a minimum of five years. 

Please keep an eye here on our blog as well as our social media channels for updates on our oyster-related research and projects! 

Special thanks to Flammio Financial Group, Stifel-Garvin Wealth Management Group, Artemis IT, and Jim and Darleen Barfield. Their generosity makes our work possible! 

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