Bay peaked at 2.9 million in 1938. In the south, North Carolina was the 

 greatest producer, and the maximum from N.C. to the east coast of Fla. was 

 1.4 million pounds of meats in 1902. The potential for clam production in 

 New England is considerable. Prices are high for the two major species, 

 and investment in aquaculture might be justified if certain things are 

 favorable. Law enforcement is the outstanding problem. We have the knowledge 

 and technology to succeed, but it is not certain that it can be done econom- 

 ically. Various partial aquacultural methods are widely used, but many are 

 taken on faith rather than from proven techniques. Plants of spawners may 

 be infinitesimal compared to natural reproduction, and unlikely to have much, 

 if any, effect. Predators are particularly destructive of young clams when 

 they have set but are still small. This is usually the size at which they 

 are planted, because it is too costly to hold and feed large numbers. Appli- 

 cation of ecological principles to practical shellfish management has been 

 tried in various places, but few have become standard procedure. The paper 

 ends with a list of 9 questions that the symposium might well consider and 

 try to answer. - J.L.M. 



1219 



McNulty, J. Kneeland, William N. Lindall, Jr., and James E. Sykes . 1972. 



Cooperative Gulf of Mexico estuarine inventory and study, Florida: Phase I, 

 Area description. NOAA Tech. Rept. NMFS Circ. 368, vii+126 p. 



Information on Mereenaria campeahiensis is cited from papers abstracted 

 elsewhere in this bibliography. Commercial production began about 1880 and 

 increased in 1900 when vast beds were discovered near the Ten Thousand 

 Islands. Commercial production reached a peak in 1932 and remained high 

 until 1945. A sharp decline from 1945 to 1950 was attributed to overfishing. 

 In 1962 to 1964 intensive harvesting of beds in Charlotte County provided a 

 short-lived spurt in production. Clams were now widespread along the west 

 coast of Fla. in salinities 20°/ oo to 35°/ 0o and from mean high tide to over 

 50 ft depth, but the authors were unaware of commercial concentrations 

 anywhere. Research had been active for 10 yrs, but few surveys of 

 distribution and abundance were available. About 43% of the area of Fla. 

 west coast estuaries, excluding Florida Bay, is affected adversely by 

 pollution. - J.L.M. 



1220 



McNulty, J. Kneeland, Robert C. Work, and Hilary B. Moore. 1962. 



Level sea bottom communities in Biscayne Bay and neighboring areas. Bull. 

 Mar. Sci. Gulf Caribb. 12(2): 204-233. 



Sampling was limited to areas relatively free from Thalassia and other 

 "grasses" so that accurate sampling could be done with a grab. Mereenaria 

 mereenaria and M. campeahiensis were referred to the Venus community for 

 consistency with other studies. At Gasparilla Island, in depths 1 to 2 

 meters, was a typical Venus community, in which Mereenaria campeahiensis 

 made up over 95% by tissue weight of the whole population, but considerably 

 less by numbers. Median grain size of bottom materials was 0.5 mm, and 

 sorting coefficient 1.21. In this community M. campeahiensis density was 

 ? clams/m 2 and dry tissue weight 22,648 mgm/m 2 . The community identified 

 as Laevicardium-Codakia might be a type of Venus community according to 

 Thorson's criteria because it prefers a similar type of sediment. - J.L.M. 



1221 



McNulty, J. K., R. C. Work,and H. B. Moore. 1962. 



Some relationships between the infauna of the level bottom and the sediment 

 in South Florida. Bull. Mar. Sci. Gulf Caribb. 12(3): 322-332. 



No mention of Mereenaria (Venus) mereenaria. - W.J.B. 



342 



