Saving the oyster continues to be a focal point of estuarine funding for restoration and research. Recent advances in modeling and time series analysis indicate the complex relationship between climate change, population regime shift, and genetic adaptation that challenges continuing attempts to develop a sustainable resource and a sustainable fishery. A 55-year time series from Delaware Bay demonstrates 8-year and 16-year shifts in population structure; the 16-year shifts appear to be true regmine shifts. These are tied to NAO. A new genetics-based population model plus observations indicate that physiological attributes as basic as the rate male to female conversion and population fecundity in these protandric animals may be rapidly influenced by climate and by fishing. Fishing and disease operate through modifications in generation time to potentially strongly influence populations dynamics, and thus impose constraints on management decisions to achieve sustainability goals.

Dr. Eric Powell received a B.S. from the University of Washington, and a M.S. and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. He is currently the Director of the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory and the Aquaculture Technology Transfer Center at Rutgers University/New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station. His research interests include: (1) paleoecology and taphonomy with emphasis on the process of preservation and destruction of carbonate skeletal material in marine sediments, (2) population dynamics modeling with emphasis on the modeling of shellfish diseases, genetics-based modeling focused on relating genotype to phenotype and environment, the application of models to estuarine management, and fisheries modeling emphasizing approaches to stock sustainability, (3) fisheries management emphasizing approaches to discard reduction, improvements in survey methods, and evaluation of alternative management approaches, and (4) the interaction of contaminants, parasites and pathologies in bivalve health.

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