Oregon Sea Grant

Community Resilience to Coastal Hazards & Climate Change

Developing Realistic Metrics of Acidification Stress for Commercially Important Bivalves in Variable Habitats

George Waldbusser
Oregon State University
College of Earth, Ocean, and Atmospheric Sciences
104 CEOAS Administration Building
Corvallis, Oregon 97331
Phone: 541-737-8964
Email

Co-PIs:  Burke Hales, OSU; Chris Langdon, Coastal Oregon Marine Experiment Station
Sea Grant Award: $175,137

Research on ocean acidification has become increasingly focused on the nearshore and estuarine environment as the role of variability in this and other biogeochemical processes in these environments becomes apparent. The need to develop standardized protocols for acidification research has driven many research programs to use long acclimation periods for their studies. While this has provided important baseline data, laboratory conditions are constant - but estuaries are highly variable. Dr. Waldbusser believes that developing tools to account for those variabilities is a crucial step for ocean acidification science, as well as for the continued health and sustainable management of living resources in an acidifying ocean.

Dr. Waldbusser’s research team will develop a numerical model and incorporate it into a user-friendly Website which resource managers, aquaculture operators and others can use to broaden their understanding of acidification, and how it affects larval oysters, and allow them to more effectively adapt, mitigate and adjust their operations in response to conditions that threaten oyster survival in the Pacific Northwest.

Learn more:

• OSU research finds "definitive" link between acidification and oyster collapse (Breaking Waves, April 2012)
• Shellfish on Acid (Terra magazine, 2011)
• Increasing acidity affects oysters in Chesapeake Bay - and beyond? (OSU News & Research Information, 2010)