Checking on field outplants at Manchester
This post details checking on our field deployments for the Manchester hardening experiment at the Manchester NOAA station.
GitHub repositories
Data for these projects are stored on GitHub in the following location:
Overview
In this project, we conducted a 2-week thermal hardening of seed provided by the USDA ARS POGS program.
Oysters were exposed to the following conditions:
- Control: Ambient temperatures (approx. 14-16°C)
- Treated: Daily exposure to elevated 25°C temperatures for approx. 5 hours
After 2 weeks of these treatments, oysters were outplanted at Manchester on the docks in SEPA cages to assess survival and growth over the summer.
Oysters were outplanted on June 16, 2025. Today we did a quick check, counted mortalities, and split oysters into multiple bags if needed to allow for more growth.
Outplants were redeployed today and will be checked again in spring.
Outplant checks
Today we removed oysters from their mesh bags, counted live/dead, and split the bags that were too full into multiple mesh bags. If oysters were split into multiple mesh bags, they were all attached back to the same original green tag. Oysters were put back into the same SEAPA cages.
We did this work between 10:30-11:30 today. Loggers were downloaded (n=4) at about 10:45.
Cages have been cleaned and maintained weekly by PSRF. Everything was clean and looked good!
Oysters have grown and there was minimal mortality (0-3 oysters per bag).
Temperature loggers
I downloaded temperature loggers and plotted temperature data from the deployment so far.
Loggers log temperature (°C) every 10 minutes throughout the deployment.
| logger | tank | treatment | header | field_tag |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22105353 | 3 | Control | 1 | R008 |
| 22105354 | 1 | High | 2 | B028 |
| 22105356 | 4 | Control | 1 | G058 |
| 22105358 | 2 | High | 2 | R013 |
Temperatures from the hardening experiment:
Temperatures from the field period:
