A Concrete Topic

Hello everyone. It has been a busy couple weeks with meetings sending me back and forth from Auckland, phone calls and emails to various members involved in my project, and countless hours milling over the design for my project. Suffice it to say, I am now dug in deep to my project and I would like to share a little with you; to explain what I will be doing for the next 2 and a half years that I have remaining on this side of the world.

It may come as a shock to some, but I am not working with crabs, nor crustaceans, but still working with marine invertebrates. My species of study this time will be the green-lipped mussel (Perna canaliculus for you scientists out there), and endemic species in New Zealand that is of great economic importance. This species supports are large aquaculture industry, but despite this, its abundance in the Hauraki Gulf around Auckland is incredibly sparse. Back in the early 1900 to 1970's there was a dredge fishery for this species which forms extensive beds, and as time progressed, the harvests grew until their crash when dredging became unprofitable. To this day, remnant beds of these mussels are virtually absent from the area, with only a few very small spots. This has removed such benefits as water filtration and forming a habitat that other animals use.

A group of scientists, environmentalist, and members of industry have come together to attempt to restore this lost habitat back to the Hauraki Gulf. They have enlisted my help to design experiments that would produce proper protocols to establish new mussel bed habitat. So for the last few weeks, we have been arranging the purchase of large quantities of mussels, ropes and mussel socks, and building cages to help test the sustainability of the beds. In just a little over a month we will be embarking on an effort to put those mussels back on the ocean floor and monitor the sustainability and colonization of the beds by other animals. In a nut shell, I am determining the best way to "re-forest" the bottom of the ocean. So this is what I have been up too while the rest of you are leaving summer for fall, enjoying your 91st birthday (Nan), and gearing up for Thanksgiving. Miss you all.