. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. In just a matter of months, small juveniles that started out less than 1/4-inch wide grow into large juveniles and small adults like this Martin Posey sweeps a net along an oyster habitat near Sneads Ferry as he checks for crabs. more compelling because of the growing interest in crabbing and some signs that crabbing may be declining. Blue crabs are the most important commercial fishery species in the Southeast with a market value of $124 million per year along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. More peop
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. In just a matter of months, small juveniles that started out less than 1/4-inch wide grow into large juveniles and small adults like this Martin Posey sweeps a net along an oyster habitat near Sneads Ferry as he checks for crabs. more compelling because of the growing interest in crabbing and some signs that crabbing may be declining. Blue crabs are the most important commercial fishery species in the Southeast with a market value of $124 million per year along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. More people are joining the industry in North Carolina and Florida, but the harvests aren't growing. "We need to know what the critical habitats are in order to manage them, protect them and enhance them," Posey says. What makes Posey's research even more useful is his choice of a region that hasn't been studied much for its crab habitats. In a joint study with Florida researchers, Posey is trying to figure out what kinds of habitats juvenile blue crabs prefer along the North Carolina and Florida coasts and to see whether those habitats are interchangeable. In the past, more attention has been given to the mid- Atlantic and northern Gulf coasts. The general theory has been that the vulnerable young crabs, which face the gravest danger from the claws of bigger blue crabs, would rather live in tangled masses of sea grass. But, Posey says, that theory doesn't explain how blue crabs have flourished along the southeastern coast of the United States, where sea grass doesn't grow from southern North Carolina to northern Florida. To test the crabs' preferences, Posey and his colleagues are trying a number of approaches. In one, they compare the number of crabs they find monthly at three types of sites — sea grass beds, sand flats and oyster beds. They set up the North Carolina test areas at Masonboro Island, Swan Point and Middle Marsh and established two other sites in Florida. In
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookcollectionunclibra, booksubjectoceanography
