This project is funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC) and Údarás na Gaeltachta under the IRC Enterprise Postgraduate Scholarship Scheme, fitting within the umbrella of Oisre Conamara. The project is part of the Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) and the Native Oyster Network of the UK and Ireland.
Current restorative approaches can tackle aspects such as density, height and recruitment but understanding the genetic structure of existing populations is crucial for restoring oyster communities with individuals that are best suited for the local conditions. Ireland hosts some of the most extensive O. edulis beds in western Europe and is in an enviable position to provide genetic and population connectivity benchmarks to inform restoration projects. The first aim of the proposed research is to fully characterise the genetic structure of the two remnant oyster populations in Connemara managed by our enterprise partner: a metapopulation of several natural native oyster beds with varying recruitment, and presence of Bonamia ostreae, located within a Kilkieran Bay ( Cill Chiaráin) complex landscape of shallow bays and channels and , and Bertraghboy Bay (Cuan na Beitrí Buí) , the location of a historically extensive but now much reduced native oyster bed representative of probably one of the last OSPAR Ostrea edulis beds in Europe. The second aim is to determine the larval and genetic connectivity between the two beds. These data will help us better understand the dispersal patterns and susceptibility to Bonamia sp. and inform restorative approaches, from site selection for substrate provision, translocation and captive breeding.
