This post details activities at Point Whitney from 1 May 2024 trip.

Overview

Today Steven and I were at Point Whitney to check on projects and conduct weekly stress.

Updates

Life stage carry over (LCO)

In this project, we exposed spat, seed, juveniles (all from POGS 2023 spawn at multiple size classes), and adults (Pacific Hybreed) to thermal conditioning in Oct-Nov 2023 and conducted an acute thermal stress test in Feb 2024 to investigate effects of thermal conditioning on tolerance. We are continuing to monitor growth of these groups as temperature is slowly increased to test for long term effects of conditioning on phenotypes.

The lifestage carry over GitHub repository is here.

See previous posts on this project in my notebook and Eric’s notebook.

Today I increased the temperature to 20°C. We increased the header tank to 60°F (~15.5°C) to increase growth rates for all of our oysters.

POGS daily seed conditioning

In this project, we are exposing seed to daily 6h exposures at 25°C in the indoor white tanks. These seed are from POGS 2023 spawn that have been reared in Point Whitney trays. We will outplant seed in May to evaluate field performance.

This project is included in the project-gigas-conditioning GitHub repository.

Everything looked good today. As noted before, we increased the header temperature to 15.5°C to increase growth. Temperatures were at 13.8°C today (see notebook images below).

POGS weekly seed conditioning

In this project, we are conducting weekly, short stress exposures (25°C for 30 min) on POGS 2023 seed reared in Point Whitney trays. These seed will be outplanted in May to evaluate the effect of thermal conditioning on field performance.

This project is included in the project-gigas-conditioning GitHub repository.

Everything looked good in these seed today. We did the 30 minute exposure at 25°C.

We also did a test for a 30 min fresh water exposure of some of the larger 2023 POGS seed that we have not used yet. We kept these in a bag in the middle tank to see if there was any mortality. If not, we will add this as a stressor.

Adults daily conditioning

In this project, we are exposing adults from 4 Pacific Hybreed families (Dog, Bird, Orange, Blue, and Yellow; same families as in lifestage carryover project) to daily 6h exposures at 25°C. We will outplant adults in May to evaluate field performance.

This project is included in the project-gigas-conditioning GitHub repository.

Temperature was increased in the header tank. Oysters looked good. For all tanks, we took fluorometry measurements throughout the day. Measurements were 8-15 in the large tanks and 2-5 in the silos.

Cleaning and inventory

Today I cleaned the upstairs area, threw out trash, and organized our supplies in boxes.

Notebook images

Here are the notebook images from the last few weeks.

Things that need to be done in upcoming visits

• Organize data, outline experimental design, and enter size data (AH)
• Analyze LCO growth data and image size analysis (AH)
• Weekly seed stress with seed from outdoor trays
• Increase temperature to 22°C in Lifestage Carry Over tank (far left tank) during the week of ~May 15th
• Launch temperature loggers
• Take weekly measurements of pH, temperature, and salinity using probes (AH prepare sensors)
• Take fluorometry measurements to characterize food delivery in large tanks
• Take May LCO growth measurements (AH)
• Outplant adults and seed in May and prepare for spawning in May
  • Decide on sampling we want to do before outplanting