Tuesday Talks- Phoebe Jekielek, Director of Research, Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership, Rockland, ME

For sea scallops, understanding larval supply is challenged in that their microscopic gametes and larvae cannot easily be distinguished taxonomically from other bivalves, and are difficult to track in situ. eDNA approaches may finally disentangle the supply-side of sea scallop recruitment ecology by providing a direct approach for species distinction and enumeration of gametes or larvae in the water column. In concert with traditional techniques like gonadal somatic indices (GSIs), we use newly developed eDNA tools to develop an understanding of the timing and magnitude of spawning in cultured and wild scallops. These approaches are a first step to ground-truthing new eDNA techniques for more quickly quantifying relative abundance of adults and gamete or larval flux. We’ll also discuss ecological and biological differences and similarities between sea and bay scallops and review previous work done in the Great Salt Pond on shellfish populations to inform potential future work.