Salt & Acid: How Oysters React to the Shift

This research aims to understand how changes in an Eastern oysters’ environment (salinity and pH) can impact its filtration rates. Eastern oysters are native to New York City (NYC), serving as a natural water filter for the Hudson River. An average adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, and have a key role in combating ocean acidification (4). As the river experiences more stressors such as increased salinity, sea-level rise, acidity (5), Eastern oysters’ efficiency in water filtration can be reduced. This could impact oyster restoration efforts across NYC like the Billion Oyster Project, which hopes to restore oyster populations within the city’s rivers.
This experiment focuses on two variables and how they impact Eastern oyster filtration: pH and salinity. Filtration can be measured through pseudofeces, which are a byproduct as a result of filtration. We tested oysters in a range of pHs and salinities and weighed the amount of pseudofeces produced in accordance with the oysters’ weight. We want to ensure that eastern oysters are still effective at water filtration in the Hudson’s changing environment as the world continues to resolve its greater environmental conflicts.