How blue claw crabs could enhance Long Island’s future clam populations.
Growing up in Riverhead on the East End of Long Island, I was surrounded by seemingly endless estuaries and prime access to the Atlantic Ocean. This environment not only shaped my childhood but also inspired my journey into marine science. Fishing, clamming, crabbing, kayaking, boogie-boarding, spearfishing, snorkeling – if it involved being on or near the water, I was there. Among these activities, clamming and crabbing truly hooked me, shaping my passions and even inspiring my college essay.
Growing Up On The Flats
From the early age of 11 years old, I’ve spent summers ambling out onto the mudflats, barefooted, with a bucket in hand and a hat on my head. The hard spots I’d feel under my feet were Atlantic hard clams, the same ones enjoyed in restaurants worldwide. When I wasn’t clamming, I’d stroll along bulkheads with a net in hand, catching blue claw crabs. These were often lonely pursuits. When I’d bring home my catch, my mom would ask why I didn’t bring a friend or two along. Growing up in the age of TikTok and Instagram, it’s tough to convince anyone to wake before dawn in the summer to slog through mudflats searching for mollusks and risk being pinched by crabs. After all, mudflats at low tide typically reek of a combination of rotten eggs and sulfur. The stench, along with its muddy source, gets trapped underneath fingernails and toenails alike. Sometimes you cut your feet on razor clams. To me, it’s all worth it. Bringing home clams and crabs to share with family and friends – especially those with Alpha-gal (a tick-borne illness that makes eating red meat impossible) – is always rewarding. fresh seafood is a welcome surprise for them, and I love the connection these traditions bring to my loved ones.
Economic Background
While my experiences on the mudflats are personal, they are also part of a much larger story – one that spans centuries and reflects the fluctuating fortunes of the clam industry on Long Island. Reaching as far back as the early 1600s, European settlers, and indigenous groups, like the Shinnecock Indian Nation, harvested clams for food, fertilizer, and jewelry-making purposes. By 1974 the clam industry on Long Island was booming, with half of the hard clams consumed in the U.S. coming straight from the Great South Bay! Unfortunately, decades of overharvesting, warming temperatures, low oxygen levels, and intense harmful algal blooms, led to sharp declines in clam populations by the 1990s and early 2000s, forcing many areas to close to commercial or recreational harvest.
Thankfully, efforts by state, federal, academic, local nonprofit, and private organizations have helped hard clam populations recover in several areas. For example, the Shinnecock Bay Restoration Program helped plant over 5 million clams between 2012-2021 with a 20-fold increase in the harvest of hard clams since the program started in 2012. These bivalves are vital to our waterways – not only are they delicious in a white wine sauce, but they play a crucial role in maintaining water quality. A single littleneck clam can filter about 4.5 gallons of water daily. Multiply that by thousands, and it’s easy to see why healthy clam populations are essential to the health of Long Island’s estuarine ecosystems.
Blue claw crabs, on the other hand, have a less detailed history on Long Island. Since the 1700s, both commercial and recreational fishermen have harvested these crabs. While the Chesapeake Bay is far more productive, blue claws have been a staple on the East End for centuries. Beyond making for excellent crabcakes, these crabs play an essential ecological role as both predator and prey. They consume bivalves, snails, fish (alive or dead), and other crabs, which helps regulate populations of these species. In turn, blue claws are also a critical food source for striped bass, octopus, sharks, tautog (blackfish), and many other marine predators. Their ecological importance is tremendous and catching them can be a fun – and delicious – experience.
Inspiration to Experiment
These childhood experiences with clamming and crabbing were incredibly formative and led me to pursue marine science through internships and college coursework. My curiosity about the underwater world eventually brought me to Stony Brook’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), where I’m now a PhD student.
At SoMAS, I’ve been fortunate enough to study both blue claw crabs and hard clams in the same waters I explored as a child. My research focuses on how chemical cues from blue claw crab feces influences hard clam growth. To explore this, I feed blue claw crabs a clam-only diet to enhance the “scent of clam” in their poop. In separate tanks, I keep two populations of juvenile clams (less than 2mm in diameter). One tank is exposed to a blue crab that has been feeding on clams, while the second tank is isolated from the crabs. Over a period of 20 weeks, I measure the clams’ shell thickness and overall size at different time points.
The results are fascinating and reveal a remarkable adaptation: the clams exposed to blue claw crabs grew thicker shells, a defense mechanism against predation. However, there was a tradeoff – the exposed clams were smaller overall compared to those not exposed to blue claws. I’ve also done this experiment with oysters and observed similar trends. I hope to incorporate another bivalve, bay scallops, to see if this trend with shell thickness continues.
This trade-off highlights the delicate balance between growth and survival in the wild. For shellfish hatcheries and restoration programs, this insight could be transformative. By prioritizing the development of hardier juvenile clams with thicker shells, we might enhance their survival rates once released into the wild. Such an approach could bolster the success of restoration efforts, ensuring more resilient populations that can withstand predation pressures.
| LEARN HOW TO CLAM |
| Clamming can be an all-season activity with the right kind of gear and equipment. Take a look at this Fisherman video explaining what to know and how to clam on the flats of Long Island. |
Ultimately, this research underscores the potential to combine science with conservation, helping to preserve Long Island’s rich shellfish heritage while also supporting critical goals meant to improve water quality. The estuaries of Long Island are more than just a childhood playground – they are a living laboratory. Through research and outreach, I hope to contribute to the preservation of these vital ecosystems, ensuring that future generations can discover their own stories in the waters that shaped mine.
