Header photo by Julieta Martinelli
Funding science is at the core of the SeaDoc Society’s mission. Every year, we fund research projects with an eye toward improving policy and conservation in the Salish Sea. We’re excited to share the first of five new projects we’re funding in 2021!
By Julieta Martinelli
Is a newly discovered shell-boring worm a threat to Olympia oysters—a species of concern and the only oyster species in the Salish Sea?
Dr. Chelsea Wood and her team at the University of Washington School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences aims to answer that question. If so, this will be crucial information to modify the current restoration plan for Olympia Oysters (Ostrea lurida).
We caught up with Wood to ask how her team will conduct the work and why it’s important for this species of concern:
We plan to assess whether these shell-boring worms are threats to Olympia oysters by determining whether they are recently arrived invasive species, invasives that arrived many years ago, or native species that have merely been undescribed until now. If they are invasives that arrived years ago or native species that have escaped scientists' notice until recently, then we can probably all breathe a little easier, because whatever negative effects they might have on Olys, we've probably already seen the worst of them. But if the worms are invasives that have only recently arrived, then we probably haven't seen the worst effects yet—a worrisome state of affairs!