Field Grow-out of Juvenile American Lobsters in Long Island Sound

Early benthic stage American lobsters, Homarus americanus, were held in a pilot nursery system in Long Island Sound (LIS) to test field grow-out, as a step toward potential stock enhancement. A larger size upon release may increase the probability of survival. Lobsters were placed individually in perforated plastic mesh cylindrical "habitats" and each habitat was housed in an outer protective sleeve with a larger mesh size. During June 2013, twenty-four lobsters were transferred to each of 3 wire-mesh cages and deployed southwest of Charles Island in Milford, Connecticut (N=3). The only source of nutrition was naturally occurring organisms. Cages were retrieved monthly and lobsters were photographed to measure changes in carapace length (CL). After 11 months in the field, lobsters increased 92% in mean size from 6.0 to 11.6 mm CL, with 70.8 % overall survival. Head-starting of early benthic stage lobsters shows promise as a tool for possible future stock enhancement in LIS.

Demonstration project to test feasibility of growing lobsters to a larger size in the field for potential release in enhancement studies.

Mercaldo-Allen, R, Goldberg, R, Kuropat, C. A., Clark, P., Alix, R., Schreiner, W. and Roy, J. 2015.

A Field-based Nursery for “Head Starting” Lobsters to Improve Post-release Survival for Potential Stock Enhancement in Long Island Sound, Connecticut.

North American Journal of Aquaculture 77(2):239-243.

Lobster growth was measured in carapace length (distance from eye socket to end of carapace)

Contact Renee Mercaldo-Allen

Contact Renee Mercaldo-Allen

NEFSC Data Access Procedure:

1. Formal request in writing usually to the data owner/contact or Center Director;

2. Requester is contacted by data owner to review and verify the request content and details for data delivery options.

3. If data is confidential then owner will determine if the data may be released to the requester;

4. If data can be released, the data is downloaded and packaged for delivery electronically; or the requester may be directed to where the data is available online.

NEFSC Data Access Constraint:

If data is stored on an internal NEFSC network, the requester may not have direct access to query the data unless they are also authorized for network access.

not applicable

not applicable

not applicable

Excel on centralized network storage, 4.13 GB

All lobsters were photographed for later digital measurement using ImageJ software, however not all lobsters were measured at every sampling interval due to occasional issues with photograph quality, missing lobsters, or mortality.

Not all lobsters were measured at every sampling interval due to occasional issues with photograph quality, missing lobsters, or mortality.

The person who conducts the carapace length measurements is trained in the use of Image J software and is the only person to make the measurements and manage the data base.

Not applicable

Data is stored on Milford Lab Network drive and on the PC of the data manager with scheduled and remote storage backups

Data set (lobster size) generated from measurements of lobster carapace lengths