Recruitment of Bay Scallops to Artificial Seagrass Units After High Density Free Planting to a Spawner Sanctuary in Hallock Bay, NY

<div class="line" id="line-5"> Bay scallops once supported a vibrant &filig;shery on Long Island, New York. Populations crashed in the mid 1980s due to a series of brown tides, and while blooms haven&rsquo;t occurred within the Peconic Estuary since 1995, scallops have not naturally recovered. Recent restoration efforts have produced over 6 million scallops for deployment in lantern nets or on-bottom spawner sanctuaries, leading to signi&filig;cant increases in scallop spat recruiting to collectors in the recent years. Hallock Bay, NY, received on-bottom free planted scallops in the winters of 2008 and 2009. These scallops experienced high survival and high densities at spawning. A series of arti&filig;cial seagrass units (ASUs) were placed in this bay prior to the spawner sanctuary being established to test for recruitment effects. Scallop spat recruitment to these ASUs was monitored via arti&filig;cial shoot collectors placed at the edge and interior of each unit. Results indicate there was variable spatio-temporal settle-ment, and no signi&filig;cant trends were observed for patch type or within patch location for recruitment of scallops. However, shoots enclosed in mesh spat bags had signi&filig;cantly higher recruits than exposed shoots, suggesting a high natural</div>