Bay scallop 



Argopecten irradians 

 Adult 



2 cm 



(fromGoode 1884) 



Common Name: bay scallop 



Scientific Name: Argopecten irradians 



Other Common Names: Atlantic bay scallop, peigne 



baie de I'Atlantique (French), peine caletero atlantico 



(Spanish) (Fischer 1978). 



Classification (Turgeon et al. 1988) 



Phylum: Mollusca 



Class: Bivalvia 



Order: Ostreoida 



Family: Pectinidae 



Value 



Commercial : Bay scallops are harvested commer- 

 cially by dredging, dip netting, raking, and hand picking 

 (Peters 1978). Reported U.S. 1992 bay scallop land- 

 ings werel 61 .5 metric tons (mt), with a dollar value of 

 $2.1 million (NMFS 1993). This an important commer- 

 cial species along the U.S. Atlantic coast, with fisheries 

 in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, North 

 Carolina, and the Gulf coast of Florida (Heffernan et al. 

 1988, MacKenzie 1989, Rhodes 1991). Landings for 

 1992 totaled 58.5 mt in the Gulf of Mexico (Newlin 

 1993). However, the commercial scallop fishery in 

 Florida has been closed since 1995 (Arnold pers. 

 comm.). There is no apparent commercial fishery for 

 this species in the remaining Gulf coastal states be- 

 cause of their relatively low abundance, but their high 

 value and the available market has sparked consider- 

 able interest in maricultural production (Hall 1984, 

 Rhodes 1991). There are few commercial scallop 

 mariculture ventures currently in operation, but hatch- 

 ery technology is well developed and research is in 

 progress (Hall 1984, Crenshaw et al. 1991, Rhodes 

 1991, Walker et al. 1991). 



Recreational : Bay scallops are sometimes collected 

 by hand picking while wading in seagrass beds. In 

 Florida waters of the Gulf of Mexico, recreational 

 harvest is common from Steinhatchee north and west 

 to Panama City (Arnold pers. comm.). However, 

 recreational harvest elsewhere in the Gulf of Mexico is 

 not especially common because of the bay scallop's 

 relatively low abundance. In Florida, the recreational 

 seasons extends from July 1 to September 10, from 

 Suwannee River southward (Arnold pers. comm.). 

 The bag limit is two gallons of whole bay scallops in the 

 shell, or one pint of meat, per day per person, or ten 

 gallons of whole scallops per day per boat (Arnold pers. 

 comm.). In Texas, they may be taken year-round in 

 waters approved by the Texas Department of Health. 



Indicator of Environmental Stress : Filter feeders such 

 as bay scallops often ingest and accumulate resus- 

 pended detritus and organic matter from polluted ar- 

 eas. This species has been used to test the effects of 

 pollutants from the petroleum industry (Hamilton et al. 

 1981). Mortality of juvenile bay scallops has been 

 demonstrated in the laboratory in the presence of 

 heavy metals (Nelson et al. 1976). 



Ecological : The bay scallop is an important part of the 

 estuarine food web through its conversion of phy- 

 toplankton and detritus into available biomass for sec- 

 ond order consumers. 



Range 



Overall : The range of this species extends along the 

 western Atlantic from Cape Cod into the Gulf of Mexico, 

 and down to Colombia (Turnerand Hanks 1 960, Sastry 

 1 962, Fischer 1 978, Peters 1 978, Robert 1 978, Fay et 

 al. 1983). Areas of abundance as determined from 



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