Oyster disease thrives in nightly dead zones
Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - 19:04
in Biology & Nature
In the Room of DOOM (Dissolved Oxygen Oyster Mortality), oyster tanks mimic the day-night oxygen swings that oysters experience in shallow Bay waters. In shallow waters around the world, where nutrient pollution runs high, oxygen levels can plummet to nearly zero at night. Oysters living in these zones are far more likely to pick up the lethal Dermo disease, a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center discovered. Their findings were published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE.