As our oceans become more acidic, foundational creatures like oysters are struggling to build their shells. To better understand this problem, a commercial oyster farm and a marine laboratory teamed up to collect data, run experiments, and understand what losing oysters would do to its greater ecosystem.
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This small shellfish has a superpower. Not only can oysters make pearls out of grains of sand... and taste incredible on the half shell… they can also completely transform their environment.

One oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water in a single day, leaving it cleaner and healthier. These amazing shellfish are like the natural cleaning crew of the ocean.

But ocean acidification and other climate-related changes are threatening oyster populations, which could be problematic for their entire ocean ecosystem.

Find out exactly why ocean acidification is so damaging to oysters in this ReWild.

Can Seagrass Save Shellfish From Climate Change?
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/...
“The seagrass pulls the carbon out of the water, which makes it slightly less acidic. Essentially, they're creating this little bubble of seawater around them that's more friendly for animals that might be threatened by ocean acidification.”

State-of-the-art ocean chemistry monitoring comes to Humboldt Bay
https://caseagrant.ucsd.edu/news/stat...
“The new instrument will monitor how the seawater chemistry in Humboldt Bay is being altered by ocean acidification: as the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere increases, some of that CO2 dissolves into the ocean which makes the seawater more acidic.”

Ocean acidification puts deep-sea coral reefs at risk of collapse
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...
“Deep-sea coral reefs face challenges as changes to ocean chemistry triggered by climate change may cause their foundations to become brittle.”

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