Katherine McFarland

National Marine Fisheries Service | NMFS · Northeast Science Center

Low salinity can negatively affect reproduction in estuarine bivalves. The spatial and temporal extents of these effects are important to inform models of population dynamics, environmental risk assessments, restoration efforts, and predictions of climate change effects. A hypothesis of delayed gametogenesis for oysters at low salinity sites was te...

Low salinity can negatively affect reproduction in estuarine bivalves. The spatial and temporal extent of these effects are important to inform models of population dynamics, environmental risk assessments, restoration efforts, and predictions of climate change effects. We hypothesized that oysters at low salinity sites would have delayed gametogen...

The eastern oyster Crassostrea virginica has a wide salinity tolerance, but all life stages are vulnerable to environmental extremes and elevated temperatures can truncate the expected salinity tolerance. The rising water temperatures and more intense and variable storm events predicted to accompany global climate change therefore raise concerns fo...

Few estuaries remain unaffected by water management and altered freshwater deliveries. The Caloosahatchee River Estuary is a perfect case study for assessing the impact of altered hydrology on natural oyster reef (Crassostrea virginica) populations. The watershed has been highly modified and greatly enlarged by an artificial connection to Lake Okee...

Shellfish hatcheries have become an increasingly important component of aquaculture production in the United States. Although the industry has been advancing technologically over time to stabilize production and supply, many hatcheries suffer regularly from bouts of stalled or failed production, termed crashes. Crashes are widely acknowledged to oc...

We present oyster larval microbiota from two feeding studies, in which wild type and low-salinity tolerant lines were either fed or starved. In one study, all larvae unexpectedly died, which was concurrent with an event in which all larvae in an adjoining oyster hatchery also died. In the other study, no crash occurred in either the study or hatche...

On the US east coast, Eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) aquaculture has grown substantially over the last century. As aquaculture expands into previously unexploited areas, there is a need for oyster lines bred for specific environmental conditions. In the Maryland portion of the Chesapeake Bay, and in other coastal areas, salinity tends to be...

Conservation efforts are increasingly being challenged by a rapidly changing environment, and for some aquatic species the use of captive rearing or selective breeding is an attractive option. However, captivity itself can impose unintended artificial selection known as domestication selection (adaptation to culture conditions) and is relatively un...

Conservation efforts are increasingly being challenged by a rapidly changing environment, and for some aquatic species the use of captive rearing or selective breeding is an attractive option. However, captivity itself can impose unintended artificial selection known as domestication selection (adaptation to culture conditions). For most marine spe...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0207368.].

Restoring and conserving coastal resilience faces increasing challenges under current climate change predictions. Oyster restoration, in particular, faces threats from alterations in precipitation, warming water temperatures, and urbanization of coastlines that dramatically change salinity patterns, foster the proliferation and spread disease, and...

Plots for each site showing interval mortality between each sampling point (bars) and mean monthly salinity (line plot). In July 2016 a negative mortality (indicated with *) at IRV and HH suggests that local recruitment is increasing the total spat count at each site. (TIF)

Length distributions of all oysters remaining at RED in June 2017 (N = 95) and July 2017 (N = 51). (TIF)

Comparion of observed June length distrbutions (yellow) with July length predictions (pink). And July predictions (pink) compared with observed length distributions in July (green). Length predictions were made using the mean growth rate (16.3 mm / month) between the two sampling points and assumes no mortality. Predictions show larger individuals...

Observed salinity extremes at Irvington (IRV) identifying the number and proportion of days < 5 ppt, mean monthly salinity and respective mean temperature for each month over the monitoring period (N = 706 days). (DOCX)

Understanding the population dynamics of invasive species, such as the green mussel Perna viridis (Linnaeus, 1758), can aid in explaining the success of newly introduced populations and help predict the potential for spread. During a two-year field study of established populations in the invaded region of southwest Florida, year round gametogenesis...

Red tide blooms formed by Karenia brevis are frequent along the Gulf coast of Florida and it is unclear what tolerance the green mussel Perna viridis, a recently introduced species to coastal waters, has toward these events. Established populations of P. viridis were monitored along the coastal waters of Estero Bay, Florida before, during and follo...

Dans le monde entier les introductions d'espèces dans de nouvelles régions constituent une préoccupation écologique croissante ; ces introductions peuvent conduire à des modifications drastiques des écosystèmes, entre autres du fait de la compétition avec des espèces indigènes et également par la modification des réseaux de flux d'énergie dans les...

Worldwide, introductions of exotic species to new regions is of rising concern which can lead to catastrophic ecosystem alterations through competition with native species and disruption in energy flow.Perna viridis is a recently introduced bivalve species to US coastal waters and has vigorously spread throughout the southeastern US. However, littl...

Perna viridis is a recently introduced species to US coastal waters and have vigorously spread throughout the southeastern seaboard since their invasion. Little information regarding their response to local environmental factors has been reported including responses to the local HAB species, Karenia brevis. This study monitored the tissue toxin con...

Temperature, salinity, and aerial exposure tolerances of the invasive green mussel, Perna viridis, were investigated under environmentally realistic conditions to address potential competition with native oysters, Crassostrea virginica. This study demonstrated that green mussels exhibit a temperature tolerance range similar to that of its native ra...

The green mussel Perna viridis is a recent invader to Southwest Florida and, though it is currently found only in high salinity areas, concerns abound that it may threaten native oysters. The objective of this study was to compare the responses of P. viridis and the native eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, to acute salinity changes by measurin...