Morgan State awarded $600K to advance clam aquaculture growth, address urban coastline resiliency

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Researchers at Morgan State University’s Patuxent Environmental and Aquatic Research Laboratory (PEARL) were awarded more than $600,000 in funding through two grants from the Maryland Sea Grant (MDSG) program to continue its research to improve Maryland’s aquaculture’s vitality and its urban coastlines’ sustainability.

The grants support PEARL’s work to advance the growth of soft-shell clam aquaculture in Maryland and promote the equitable distribution of health and climate resilience benefits by creating “blue spaces” along underserved, coast-adjacent South Baltimore communities.

PEARL is located 80 miles south of Morgan State’s main campus on the Patuxent River shoreline, a major Chesapeake Bay tributary. Its research is designed to increase the understanding of coastal and environmental systems so that they can be properly managed and protected.

The grants awarded to PEARL are part of $1.25 million in MDSG-administered federal funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The investment supports five vital research projects addressing water quality restoration tools, algal bloom monitoring, urban community access to coastal spaces, and living shorelines.

One of the grants is supporting the work of PEARL’s Environmental Economics team, which plays a central role in the Baltimore BLUE-CORE: BLUEspace COllaborative REsearch for Urban Coastal Access and Climate Resilience in South Baltimore Project. BLUE-CORE is a multidisciplinary effort investigating how the creation of “blue spaces” beneficially impacts health and climate resilience in under-resourced, water-bordering Baltimore neighborhoods that are not home to international commerce, maritime activities and waterfront retail businesses. Dr. Scott Knoche and Kehinde Ojo, Ph.D., a postdoctoral research associate at PEARL, serve as principal investigators for the project.

The second MSG research award will underwrite two years of examination and advancement of soft-shell clam vitality by PEARL, supporting efforts to overcome a myriad of challenges faced by the shellfish (known scientifically as Mya arenaria and more commonly as “steamers”) within the Chesapeake Bay and its adjoining estuaries.

In a previous Maryland Sea Grant project, Ming Liu, Ph.D., a PEARL researcher and principal investigator on a recently awarded grant to advance the growth of soft-shell clam aquaculture in Maryland, said PEARL achieved significant milestones related to soft-shell clam breeding and grow-out methods. He added this new project will leverage past successes and focus on selective breeding, with the end result being novel lines of heat-tolerant soft-shell clam that will further enhance crop yield.