Investigator: Todd Osborne, UF/IFAS Soil, Water and Ecosystem Sciences Department
Objectives: Organic matter in estuarine sediments is highly variable across space and time and exerts significant influence over major biogeochemical processes, such as oxygen consumption and sulfide production. Increased temperature can exacerbate already low oxygen conditions (hypoxia) and buildup of toxic sulfide gases in sediments, ultimately controlling growth and survival of hard clams. The objective of this work is to repeatedly measure sediment organic matter (SOM) over time at participating leases to enable the correlation of SOM and hypoxia or sulfide stress induced mortality during summer months. Six participating growers will sample sediment in triplicate monthly at three sites (active bag harvests) and one control site (easement) for four months.
