April 13th, 2017: Returned to Manchester solo to sample the K population (Katherine’s oysters spawned in 2015)

Time-frame

Wow, I made good time! Arrived at 8:00 AM, was finished at 4:30 PM, included a 30-minute lunch break. Sampled 60 oysters from 4 treatments (12 bags).

Sampling scheme

Shucked and pulled 5 tissue samples from each oyster:

• Flash-frozen in ethanol/dry ice bath, and stored in -80 in Rick’s Lab: Mantle (M), Ctenidia (C), Adductor (A)
• Excess tissue (any type) for DNA (E), stored in 1 mL ethanol and placed in fridge in rm 209

• Visceral Mass for Histology, oriented with right valve facing up, left valve facing down - the section will be taken from the left-valve side, which is the side not likely injured by the act of shucking.

  Tube Label	Population	Treatment	# Sampled
  K-6-16 to K-6-30	K	chilled T, low pH	15 (5/rep)
  K-6-31 to K-6-45	K	chilled T, ambient pH	15 (5/rep)
  K-10-16 to K-10-30	K	ambient T, low pH	15 (5/rep)
  K-10-31 to K-10-45	K	ambient T, ambient pH	15 (5/rep)

How ripe are these 2 year old oysters?

I was interested to see if any of these oysters would show developed gonads. A few did (the larger ones), but many did not. Here are some snap shots of what I saw:

This cassette was the first 9 oysters I sampled, all from K-chilled-low pH