Wrapping Up

            As our projects come to an end, I can certainly look back and see that we put in a lot of time and effort to carry out these research projects which have important implications in restoration ecology. Being part of the benthic group, I believe the most difficult aspect of this project was analyzing the sediment cores due to the amount of sediment that had to be sifted through and the attention to detail needed to count and identify all the infauna. Regardless, we were able to find some really interesting organisms, mostly being worms. However, we were unable to classify them down to genus and species. Other organisms included amphipods and a snail. The dominant faunal groups were worms and shrimp.
            Other benthic organisms included blue crabs, green porcelain crabs, toadfish, and emerald gobies.
After analyzing the data, we found that the restored site supported a more diverse and abundant benthic faunal community. This led to the conclusion that oyster reef restoration can potentially increase fish production and create a more stable estuarine ecosystem. One interesting observation was that the fiddler crab burrows were more abundant farther from shore in the non-restored site versus the restored site. I hope to continue monitoring this and see if there is a true relationship between the restoration and the burrows.

            Overall, I have learned a lot from this project including different field and lab techniques for analysis as well as how to classify different benthic organisms. I am looking forward to continuing the oyster reef restoration monitoring project and I believe the knowledge I have gained so far will certainly help in continuing the monitoring of the benthic communities. Also, this map of the sampling sites (which Collin created) will help to plan out the ongoing monitoring.

Map of the restored and non-restored site including trays and transects
Courtesy of Collin