A highly efficient oyster spat collector made with recycled materials

This study presents data from over 7 years on the numbers of spat settling onto plastic bottles (21 soda bottles). The bottles were cut longitudinally into two halves and suspended in a series from 0.10 to 2.00 m in depth in the Laguna de la Restinga on Margarita Island, Venezuela. The surface area of one entire collector was 1.8 m(2) (formed by 20 bottles halves) and the average number of oysters attaching after a deployment period of 1 month was 326 spat/m(2) (and the monthly average ranged from 42 to 1496 over 7 years). Plastic bottles used in this way provided an efficient and cost-effective means of collecting oyster spat, and the spats were easily detached because of the flexibility of the plastic surfaces. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.