Estuary A: The Oyster Toadfish

ESS 319H Human Impacts on Organisms and Trophic Cascades in the Biosphere December 3, 2008

Abstract: The estuary is one of the most diverse and intricate ecosystems on earth. As a transition area between inland rivers and the open ocean, the brackish waters of an estuary provide many unique habitats for countless aquatic species. Chesapeake Bay is the nations largest estuary and the third largest in the world. It is an important region both economically and in terms of biodiversity. The Bay is home to the oyster toadfish, sometimes referred to as the ugliest fish in the Bay. The unique anatomy and behavior of the toadfish sometimes go unnoticed amongst the complex food web of the Bay. The Chesapeake Bay ecosystem is delicate and can be adversely affected by both natural processes of global change and human activities.

Outline I. Introduction

1. 2. 3. 4. a. b. c. 1. 2. 3. 4. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

II. Biome Description: The Estuary Transition between land and sea Historical geology Nutrient cycling Chesapeake Bay characteristics history biodiversity III. The Oyster Toadfish Physical characteristics Habitat Reproduction Diet IV. Trophic Interactions Estuarine food chain Food web interactions Possible trophic cascade Relation to current issues Consequences of climate change V. Conclusion

VI. References VII. Figures

Introduction Chances are the oyster toadfish is a creature that will never be seen dwelling in a household aquarium. Their unique and bizarre appearance keeps the fish safe from greedy anglers and commercial fishermen. The toadfish is commonly found in the Chesapeake Bay estuary and is a major part of the ecosystems food web. As all organisms are, the oyster toadfish population can be affected human involvement in the environment. The first law of nature states you cannot do only one thing, and this law can easily be applied in this situation. Any significant change in the oyster toadfish population will have an impact on other populations of organisms, or vice versa, resulting in a trophic cascade. The Estuary When one thinks of the most diverse ecosystems on earth, the usual answer is tropical rainforests. While this is true, another dynamic ecosystem is often overlooked in terms of sheer biodiversity: the estuary. Commonly given names like gulf, bay or sound, an estuary is a partially enclosed body of water formed where fresh water from streams and rivers mixes with salt water from the ocean.1 This mix of fresh and salt water is called brackish water. The area acts as a transition from land to sea, blending waters of different salinity levels and creating a very unique environment. No two estuaries in the world are the same because of the differential rates of the oceanic and river currents that come together. Frequently, a salinity gradient is present within an estuary, as fresh water is less dense than salt water and requires strong tidal forces to be thoroughly mixed.4 Most of the worlds estuaries are protected from high winds and waves by reefs or barrier islands along the seaward boundary, supporting this gradient and providing many safe niches for the native species. Estuaries can occur in temperate to tropical climates.

Geologically speaking, the estuaries of today are young and ephemeral features. Formed after the end of the last glacial period, estuaries are constantly changing places. Sea level changes play an important role in the creation and destruction of an estuarine environment. Without a rising sea level, estuaries will fill up with sediment from their respective watershed and decrease in size. One major consequence of the continuous and turbulent mixing of the waters in an estuary is the cycling of nutrients. The chemical components of salt water are typically the same around the world; however, the components of the fresh water from inland streams and rivers can vary widely. Resultantly, types of estuarine vegetation are quite diverse as well as the forms of animal life.

Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States of America. Located on the East Coast, its watershed covers 64,000 square miles of land and spans six states: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia; and the entire District of Columbia. The bay is fed by more than 100,000 streams and rivers, 130 of which alone account for half of the total water supply. The Susquehanna River provides nearly half of the total fresh water supply of the Chesapeake Bay. The Bay itself is nearly 200 miles long and covers roughly 4,500 square miles, yet it contains approximately 11,700 miles of shoreline, more than the entire west coast of the United States! Despite its massive proportions, the Bay is a relatively shallow body of water, with an average depth of only 21 feet.1 The Environmental Protection Agency claims that a person six feet tall could wade across 700,000 acres of the Bay without becoming submerged.3 Historically, the Chesapeake Bay has been the most productive bay in North America. The ports of Baltimore and Hampton Roads, two of the five major ports on the continent, are located on the Bay. It is a commercial and recreational resource for the more than 16 million people who live in the Bays enormous watershed. Many residents of the Bay area enjoy activities including boating, angling, swimming and bird-watching. Commercially, the Bay produces almost 500 million pounds of seafood each year, predominantly fish and shellfish.1 In terms of biodiversity, the Chesapeake Bay is home to roughly 3,600 species of plants, fish and animals. Many forms of life can live in the area because the Bay provides many different types of ideal habitats. These habitats include wetlands, forests, aquatic reefs, tidal marshes, rivers and streams, and shallow and open waters.1

The Oyster Toadfish The oyster toadfish may lay claim to being the ugliest fish in the Chesapeake Bay, a vision of nightmares, slimy and ragged, with fleshy flaps hanging from their lips and over their eyes, covered with warts, and with threatening, wide-gaping jaws armed with sharp teeth.6 Of the family Batrachoididae, the oyster toadfish, Opsanus tau, is a scale-less, flat-bodied fish with a blotchy, olive-brown color. They have large heads and plump bellies that taper to a relatively thin tail. Typically, oyster toadfish can grow up to a foot in length. The fish has sharp spines on its dorsal fin and gills which it can erect in self defense. Additionally, the ventral fins located under the throat in front of the gill openings can be stretched out like fans.8 The oyster toadfish is capable of producing two distinct vocal sounds, a foghorn or boat whistle by a spawning male to attract a mate, and a loud grunt when responding to annoyance or fear.6 The oyster toadfish is a bottom dweller that is commonly found living in oyster reefs. The fish enjoy the sandy, rocky or muddy bottom of the sea among the low-lying vegetation such as eel grass. The oyster toadfish is a rather hardy organism, as it is capable of adapting to bad conditions and can tolerate litter and polluted water. The preferred climate of the oyster toadfish is subtropical, and their native range is along the Atlantic coast of the United States, from Massachusetts in the north to as far as Miami in the south5. The fish are found year-round throughout Chesapeake Bay, as they can survive in either fresh water or salt water.
Native range of the Oyster Toadfish

The reproductive behavior of the oyster toadfish is quite interesting. They spawn in the Bays shallows, between the months of April and October1. During this season, males make a nest in any dark, secretive place they can find, sometimes even inside old tin cans or under broken debris. They then call for a mate by producing the foghorn sound. The female toadfish will come in and lay their eggs on the top side of the nest, as the eggs have a natural adhesive. Oyster toadfish lay the largest eggs of any Chesapeake Bay fish, at nearly a quarter of an inch in diameter. It is the males job to protect the eggs for about a month, keeping the nest clean by fanning out debris with their fins. Newly hatched young are still attached to the nest by a bulbous yolk, which remains attached until the yolk is fully absorbed. Parental care will last for up to three or four weeks after hatching.6 The oyster toadfish is an omnivore, and typically feeds on small crabs, shrimp, worms, oysters, mollusks, and small fish. The powerful teeth and jaw of the fish are able crush the hard shells of many mollusks8. Toadfish rely upon camouflage to catch their food, using the strategy of laying motionless waiting for prey to wander close by, and then attacking by surprise. Due to their omnivorous diet, oyster toadfish are quick to take bait; however, they are rarely kept by anglers to be eaten because of their grotesque appearance.

Trophic Interactions

Osprey

In the food chain of an estuarine environment, the oyster toadfish can be thought of as a tertiary consumer. The producers in the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem are the sea grasses, algae and phytoplankton that use photosynthesis to convert the suns energy. The phytoplankton is eaten by copepods or zooplankton and filter feeders such as oysters. These primary consumers are in turn eaten by secondary consumers including small fish and crustaceans. Aside from large fish like the oyster toadfish, other tertiary and higher level consumers are birds, such as the osprey, land animals and humans. Oyster Toadfish However, the interactions between organisms are in reality much more complex and would be better described as a food web. A food web is a complex network of food production and consumption that Blue Crab continuously cycles organic matter and energy through the ecosystem. The key observation of a food web is that every organism is somehow connected to every other organism, no matter how many degrees of separation Oyster between them, and can thus be affected by a significant change in the population size of one member of the web. Therefore, a healthy and stable ecosystem is one with a balanced food web. Any substantial alteration of the number of a specific organism in the ecosystem can result in a trophic cascade, affecting trophic levels above and below the source organism. As previously stated, the oyster toadfish is in no danger of being over-harvested as food for human consumption. Nevertheless, the species can become threatened due to the diminishing population of oysters, a closely linked organism in the food web of Chesapeake Bay. The oyster is an economically important creature for the Bay area, as the oyster industry has contributed millions of dollars to the regions economy since the 19th century, adding to the rich history and cultural heritage of Chesapeake Bay.1 According to the Chesapeake Bay Program, the interaction of overharvesting, disease, sedimentation and poor water quality has caused a severe decline in the oyster numbers, and that the Bay's native oyster population is now estimated to be a mere two percent of its historical abundance. Oysters are often preyed upon by the blue crab, another economically significant fishery of the Chesapeake Bay area. Decreasing numbers in the oyster population can lead to a declining blue crab population, both having a detrimental effect on the regions economy. This would also affect the populations of large fish that feed on the blue crabs, such as the oyster toadfish, and the consequences can be felt by organisms in every trophic level. Additionally, as filter feeders, the oysters improve water clarity for sea grasses by filtering out suspended sediments and chemical contaminates. With declining numbers of oysters, water quality will decrease, making it more difficult for the remaining oysters to filter the water, and resulting in more oysters dying. In this way, the decline of the oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay region can be described as a positive feedback loop.

The current issues facing the oyster toadfish are the same issues facing all wildlife in Chesapeake Bay. The large problems placing stress on the ecosystem include chemical contaminants, air pollution, landscape changes, erosion and over-harvesting of species. While many of these concerns are results of natural global change, several of them can be linked to human activities. Human population growth and development brings with it deforestation and increased pollution of the air and water. In addition, an expanding economy can lead to overharvesting of some aquatic species. Furthermore, the introduction of invasive species which can encroach on the habitat and food sources of the native species is a concern, along with the increased chance of disease. The major cause for concern today comes down to climate change. Whether it is a natural process or is facilitated by human activities, the consequences of it are clear. Rising global temperatures begin to change the ecosystem in many ways. A rising sea level leads to loss of the tidal marshes, an important habitat for many creatures and an area that protects the shoreline from the elements. Increased rates of precipitation can raise the turbidity of the sea water, and fuel the growth of algae, which can rob the aquatic life of sunlight and dissolved oxygen.1 Conclusion The survival of the oyster toadfish and the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem as a whole is an issue that will fall upon future generations to attend to. By setting goals and working to restore the Bay, biodiversity can return to previous levels. Maintaining better control of the water quality, setting guidelines for land development, and managing the fisheries are just a few ways in which humans can contribute to the restoration of the Bay and uplifting the overall health of our planet.

References Consulted
1. "About the Bay." Chesapeake Bay Program - A Watershed Partnership. 2008. Chesapeake Bay Program. 7 Nov. 2008 <http://www.chesapeakebay.net/aboutbay.aspx? menuitem=13953>. 2. "About the Watershed." Lessons from the Bay. 2000. Virginia Department of Education. 7 Nov. 2008 <http://www.doe.virginia.gov/vdoe/lfb/aboutwatershed/index.html>. 3. Ernst, Howard R. Chesapeake Bay Blues : Science, Politics and the Struggle to Save the Bay. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, Incorporated, 2003. 4. "Estuary," Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia 2008 <http://encarta.msn.com 1997-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All Rights Reserved. 5. Froese, R., and D. Pauly. Editors. Sept. 2008. FishBase. 7 Nov. 2008. <http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=3069>. 6. Lippson, Alice J., and Robert L. Lippson. Life in the Chesapeake Bay. 3rd ed. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006. 7. Oberrecht, Kenn. "Estuarine Food Chains and Webs." 7 Nov. 2008 <http://www.oregon.gov/dsl/ssnerr/docs/efs/efs29estchain.pdf>. 8. "Oyster Toadfish (Opsanus tau)." Envionmental Data Center. 30 Sept. 2008. University of Rhode Island. 7 Nov. 2008 <http://www.edc.uri.edu/restoration/html/gallery/fish/toad.htm>. 9. Windows to the Universe team. Chesapeake Bay. Boulder, CO: 2000-04 University Corporation of Atmospheric Research (UCAR), 1995-1999, 2000 The Regents of the University of Michigan, 7 Nov. 2008. <http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/earth/Water/chesapeake.html&edu=high>.

Figures
In order of appearance in document: Cover page: http://sanctuaries.noaa.gov/missions/2008nancy_foster/images/log2_3.jpg The Estuary: http://www.lumcon.edu/education/studentdatabase/images/estuary.jpg Chesapeake Bay: http://www.chesapeakebaysampler.com/CBS_BillNelsonMap.JPG Oyster Toadfish: http://www.chesapeakebay.net/bfg_toadfish.aspx?menuitem=14404 Native Range: http://www.fishbase.org/Summary/SpeciesSummary.php?id=3069 Food Chain: http://www.chesapeakebay.net/foodweb.aspx?menuitem=15903