Oysters Eyed as Help for New York Harbor

They are soft to the touch, but surrounded by a hard rough shell. Known as filter feeders, many as small as your thumb, moncler sale cheap   they use their tiny cilia to draw in plankton, sediment and other particles over their gills and spit out cleaner water.

They dwell where salt water meets fresh water, and survive in a variety of temperatures from the chilly New England coast to the Gulf of Mexico. And they once played a vital role in New York's harbor providing both a vitamin-rich source of food and a means of commerce and trade.

Now, the oyster could have amoncler sale different role to play - helping clean New York's polluted harbor.

These ecological engineers work round the clock filtering water, says Beth Ravit, an environmental scientist and professor at Rutgers University. One little oyster, or mussel, too, can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day.

"They literally change, physically and moncler outlet chemically, the system it's a part of," Ravit said.

Oysters help get turbidity, or cloudiness, out of the water, thereby allowing sea gr** and other plant species to grow. In turn, Ravit said, this puts oxygen into the water, promotes photosynthesis, and creates conditions by which other marine species can survive.

Ravit, who works  moncler jackets alongside the New York/New Jersey Baykeepers, an ecology advocate group, has been studying oysters, in the Hudson River Estuary since 2006 and says there are spots of populations along the coast, but otherwise they are close to extinct. Once abundant, this bivalve population dwindled in the past century as a result of heavy industrial activity, such as shipping and dredging, as well as overfishing.

Oyster larvae seek substrate, or a surface area, to which moncler coats to attach and search for ** oysters. As they begin to pile up, they form reefs that can serve to protect shorelines by providing wave attenuation and offer other marine plant and animal species places to live in the crevices within its rough hewed shell piles.

"They look like the  moncler onlinecold water version of a coral reef," Ravit said. "They create a home and a restaurant for other species to live and eat."