Technological Constraints During the First 40 Years of Eastern Oyster Crassostrea virginica Aquaculture
2014
Kennedy, Victor S.
This article focuses on early efforts to culture eastern oyster larvae to settlement. Initial experiments were performed in 1878 and 1879 by Brooks, the first researcher to produce fertilized eggs. The subsequent challenge was to rear the microscopic larvae to settlement by feeding them and changing their culture water without losing them. Researchers like Ryder struggled with these problems, devising a number of filters and water circulation schemes, none of which were practical. Ryder eventually abandoned laboratory work and invented extensive and imaginative, but commercially unsuccessful, field trials to cultivate larvae in ponds and sluiceways. Subsequently, the Nelsons in New Jersey in the early 1900s tried similar experiments, ultimately focusing on understanding larval biology in nature and on predicting when naturally spawned larvae would settle so that settlement surfaces could be provided expeditiously. A breakthrough came in 1920 when Wells used a centrifuge to separate oyster larvae from old culture water, transferring the concentrated larval mass to new culture water. Wells then developed a system of culture vessels that enabled millions of competent larvae to be reared to settlement. Subsequently, researchers were able to study issues that enhanced the industrial culture of larvae of many bivalves, not just oysters.
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