The Historical Oyster Body Size Project

The Historical Oyster Body Size (HOBS) project was a collaboration between the Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection. The goal was to use the naturally accumulated record of dead, buried oysters beneath living reefs to extend baselines of oyster information further into the past. Oyster monitoring programs often only have one to two decades of data available, making it difficult to make long-term management decisions. HOBS hand-collected preserved shells to 35cm depth and measured over 30,000 oysters from 12 locations across Florida to inform body size trends over time. As part of the Statewide Ecosystem Assessment of Coastal and Aquatic Resources (SEACAR), the goal was to inform management and policy decisions across the state for oyster habitats, one of five primary coastal habitats in Florida.

'Conservation paleobiology: Putting the dead to work' was a physical exhibit in the Museum of the Earth in Ithaca, NY September 2020 to May 2024 that I helped design and develop content for. The goal was to showcase some of the behind-the-scenes research at the Paleontological Research Institution that the public rarely gets to see. We also conducted a survey research study with museum visitor participants to investigate whether a museum exhibit was an effective medium for the public to learn about an emerging field of science called conservation paleobiology, which applies paleontological data and methods towards modern conservation issues. We created an online exhibit version, which you can access at museumoftheearth.org.