Service-Learning at Cannon's Point Preserve
Authors: Jonathan Dance, Amanda Kline, and Madeline Smith
Faculty Supervisor: Dr. C. Tate Holbrook
Abstract:
Living shorelines are an alternative to bulkheads as a means to stabilize banks, while also providing habitat for oysters and fish. One was installed at Cannon’s Point Preserve on St. Simons Island. Our Conservation Biology class collected data on the preliminary results of the construction of the living shoreline. We laid out eight transects with three quadrats each, one in the upper, middle, and lower tidal area. We counted and measured the oysters in each quadrat. We also observed the number of Spartina stems on the upland. Our early findings suggest that there are more oysters present at the site than there were before construction, and they were spread out over the entirety of the area. The oysters are smaller now but that is because most of them are still young. Spartina was sparse but planting was not finished at the time of data collection.
