A Bay Scallop’s Brave New World: Can the Introduced Codium fragile Act as an Eelgrass Surrogate?

<div class="line" id="line-5"> Bay scallops, Argopecten irradians, once supported a vibrant &filig;shery on Long Island, but were pushed to the brink of local extinction after a series of brown tide blooms in the 1980&rsquo;s. Restoration efforts, which commenced at the time of the &filig;shery collapse, were somewhat successful but since 1995 scallop populations have remained well below historic levels. Despite many reasons for this lack of recovery, loss and alteration of habitat is often considered the major player. The potential role of the existing eelgrass (Zostera marina), the preferred bay scallop habitat, and macroalgae as suitable bay scallop habitat was investigated at 4 time points over 2 years. Tagged juvenile bay scallops were free planted to the bottom and tethered in 6 different habitats for a period of one week and percent recovery was calculated. Recovery numbers were highest in eelgrass, however, dense stands of Codium fragile exhibited statistically identical recovery to eelgrass. Eelgrass and codium both performed signi&filig;cantly better than replicate releases on bare sediment and dense drift macroalgae. These results can help managers to plan more ef&filig;cient restoration efforts by locating potential habitats where scallop survival would be highest, even in the absence of eelgrass.</div>