TIME AND INTENSITY OF SETTING OF THE OYSTER, CRASSOSTREA VIRGINICA, IN LONG ISLAND SOUND

Open Access
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
These observations, conducted in Long Island Sound from 1937 to 1961, dealt with the occurrence and numbers of oyster larvae (Crassostrea virginica), and with the time and intensity of their setting. They showed no definite relation between the numbers of larvae and adult oysters, nor between the numbers of certain larval enemies and intensity of setting. Mortality of larvae was observed in some summers during blooms of dinoflagellates. Larvae set at all depths down to 100 feet. Beginning of setting at different depths occurred at approximately the same time. The average length of the setting season was 65 days, the longest being 85 days and the shortest 35 days. The mean date for the beginning of setting was July 20, although it varied from July 9 to Aug. 11. The earliest termination of settling was on Aug. 26 and the latest on Oct. 17. Setting was not a continuous phenomenon and its intensity differed considerably from week to week. Almost each year there were two well-defined setting waves, with distinct peaks. The time at which these peaks occurred varied in different years. Neither the first nor the second wave was regularly predominant. The intensity of setting also differed from year to year, being lowest in 1957, when approximately 3 recently-set oysters were recorded per 100 shell-surfaces at each station during the entire season, and the heaviest was in 1939 and 1940, when over 42,000 spat were counted under the same conditions.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: