NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office Oyster Reef Ecosystem Projects

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The NOAA Chesapeake Bay Office is funding seven projects that seek to quantify the benefits that restored oyster reefs provide to the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

Projects include:

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science: “Integrated Assessment of Oyster Reef Ecosystem Services: Quantifying Denitrification Rates and Nutrient Fluxes”

Virginia Institute of Marine Science: “Ecosystem Services of Restored Oyster Reefs in Lower Chesapeake Bay”

Virginia Institute of Marine Science: “Integrated Assessment of Oyster Reef Ecosystem Services: Fish and Crustacean Utilization, Secondary Production and Trophic Linkages”

University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science: “Natural Engineers in Ecosystem Restoration: Modeling Oyster Reef Impacts on Particle Removal and Nutrient Cycling”

University of Maryland-College Park: “Integrate Assessment of Oyster Reef Ecosystem Services: Macrofaunal Utilization, Secondary Production, and Nutrient Sequestration”

Smithsonian Institution: “Application of Dual-Frequency Imaging Sonar to the Study of Oyster Reef Ecosystem Services”

Virginia Commonwealth University: “Pathways to Production: An Assessment of Fishery Responses to Oyster Reef Restoration and the Trophic Pathways that Link the Resource to the Reef”

Funding for these projects comes from NCBO’s fiscal year 2014 budget and totals just over $800,000 for the first year of these projects. Projects were selected through a competitive process announced last spring.

source: http://chesapeakebay.noaa.gov

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