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Description:
Project Manager:
Jennifer Doerr
Project Years:
2018
2019
2020
Project Summary:
This project addresses concerns over levels of contaminants in water, sediments, and marine organisms in the coral reef ecosystem of Salt River Bay. Degraded habitats and chemical contaminants can contribute both to human health risks from consumption of local marine resources and the loss of health and resilience in the impacted coral reef ecosystem. Our research objectives are to assess contaminant levels from the Salt River watershed along an inshore-offshore gradient in the tissues and shells of selected marine organisms and to determine if the recent passage of hurricanes Irma and Maria generated exposure peaks from resuspension of sediments. Work completed through this project will support the Coral Reef Conservation Program's (CRCP) Impacts from Land-based Sources of Pollution goal to reduce pollutant loading from watersheds to priority coral reef ecosystems by filling strategic science gaps that directly inform management decisions related to planning and implementation activities in priority coral reef ecosystems and associated watersheds (Objective L1.4).Salt River Bay is historically known to contain juvenile queen conch in the shallow inner areas of the bay, as well as a deep-water population of large adult queen conch in Salt River canyon. Since queen conch are epiphytic feeders and completely benthic, we will use them as a representative species to examine the potential long-term accumulation and trophic pathways of contaminants within the Salt River Bay ecosystem. We will quantify contaminant concentrations in queen conch tissues collected throughout the bay. Queen conch in the nearshore habitats of Florida have been shown to exhibit reproductive failure in response to increased levels of certain pollutants. Therefore, we will use visual surveys and acoustic tagging and tracking to locate and identify spawning grounds in the area. NOAA’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science (NCCOS) deployed 41 acoustic receivers in Salt River in 2017. As part of a previous CRCP-funded queen conch acoustic tracking project, we contributed two additional receivers and five acoustic tags to supplement the expansion of the acoustic tracking array into Salt River. In addition, we will conduct radial surveys to quantitatively assess the reproductive activity of the localized adult population and collect tissue samples from adult conch to histologically confirm reproductive viability.
Expected Outcome:
Data from this project will contribute to the understanding of chemical contaminant levels in the tissues of queen conch in Salt River Bay. Through this project, we expect to be able to describe the movement patterns of queen conch in Salt River and how their residence periods throughout the watershed contribute to their exposure and subsequent accumulation of contaminants. In particular, we expect to be able to assess levels of known reproductive inhibitors combined with histological examination of reproductive status in adult queen conch. These results will be disseminated to federal and territorial managers to identify and refine watershed management activities.
Project Locations:
Project Category:
Land-based Sources of Pollution (LBSP)
Project Type:
Ongoing
Project Status:
Funding Ended
Associated Products:
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