In a new paper, we have shown that Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas) larvae use sound to select suitable habitats.
Oysters begin their lives as pelagic larvae in search of a place to settle for the rest of their sessile lives. Selecting a suitable settlement location is thus of vital importance for their survival and fitness. They depend on external cues to find such a suitable location and sound was hypothesised to serve as one such cue. The preferred habitat of oysters is on hard substrate among conspecifics.
In a lab study, we exposed oyster larvae to playbacks of sound recordings from oyster reefs, vessels, a combination of oyster reefs and vessels, off reef (sandy bottom), and no sound at all. The larvae were most likely to settle during the playback of oyster reef sound. This confirms that oyster larvae use soundscapes to select suitable habitat. It may also be worthwhile to test whether speaker setups can be used for restoration purposes in the field.
Read all about it in the paper: Schmidlin, S., Parcerisas, C., Hubert, J., Watson, M.S., Mees, J., Botteldooren, D., Devos, P., Debusschere, E. & Hablützel, P.I. (2024). Comparison of the effects of reef and anthropogenic soundscapes on oyster larvae settlement. Sci. Rep. 14, 12580.
