August 12, 2021 — It’s no secret that the Gulf of Maine has been warming in recent years. While the rise in temperature is a concern for some ocean species like lobster, it’s a more suitable environment for others, like quahogs.
The hard-shell clam can be found up and down the east coast but Director of Fisheries at Manomet Marissa McMahan said quahogs could thrive and spawn in Maine.
In 2018, Manomet and the town of Georgetown’s Shellfish Conservation Committee brought 50,000 adult quahogs to Robinhood Cove in hopes of creating a self-sustaining population.
On Tuesday, it was time to use environmental, or ‘eDNA’ to check and see if there was an abundance of the species and if any spawning occurred.
“If this technology can in fact tell us about shellfish spawning events then that’s something that we can utilize in shellfish management and conservation coast-wide,” McMahan said.
Working in partnership with the University of Maine and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, the scientists collected water samples at various depths around the cove.