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Assessing the contribution of aquaculture and restoration to wild oyster populations in a Rhode Island coastal lagoon

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Abstract

The decline of the eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) has prompted various restoration and aquaculture efforts. Recent field surveys in Rhode Island suggest that wild populations are increasing, yet the factors contributing to expansion are unknown. We used a population genetic approach to characterize genetic differences between wild and cultured oyster populations and explore the extent of connectivity and admixture between groups. Individual oysters from four wild, three farmed, and two restored populations were collected within or just outside Ninigret Pond, a coastal lagoon highly influenced by human activity, and genotyped at 13 microsatellite loci. Results from the multi-locus genotype data showed that wild populations were more genetically diverse than the cultured populations. We also observed significant genetic differentiation between paired wild and cultured populations but not between pairs of wild populations. A cluster analysis detected substantial admixture between wild and cultured groups. As oyster aquaculture and restoration activities are forecasted to increase in the future, this study highlights the potential degree of genetic introgression between remnant wild populations and less diverse, hatchery-reared stocks. Those tasked with preserving our living natural resources should carefully consider how the juxtaposition of aquaculture, restored, and wild populations at small spatial scales will impact the genetic composition and evolutionary trajectories of species in decline for generations to come.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Marta Gómez-Chiarri for access to laboratory space and equipment, and Jessica Piez and Saebom Sohn for assistance in the lab. Dillon McNulty, Bray Beltran, and Jeanne Parente helped with oyster collections in the field. We also thank Mary Sullivan for help with GIS, Eric Schneider and Gary Casabona for useful discussions about shellfish restoration in RI, and two anonymous reviewers for very thoughtful and constructive comments on this manuscript. This work was funded through USDA ARS CRIS Project #803031000003, The Nature Conservancy’s GLOBE internship program, and a non-competitive grant from the USDA NRCS. Access to the University of Rhode Island Genomics and Sequencing Center, which is supported in part by the National Science Foundation under EPSCoR Cooperative Agreement # EPS-1004057, was also instrumental for the completion of this work.

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  1. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, 10024, USA

    Hannah Jaris

  2. The Nature Conservancy, Narragansett, RI, 02882, USA

    Hannah Jaris & D. Steven Brown

  3. United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Cold Water Marine Aquaculture Center, Kingston, RI, 02881, USA

    Dina A. Proestou

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Correspondence to Dina A. Proestou.

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Jaris, H., Brown, D.S. & Proestou, D.A. Assessing the contribution of aquaculture and restoration to wild oyster populations in a Rhode Island coastal lagoon. Conserv Genet 20, 503–516 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-019-01153-9

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