Mr Russell Richards

A UQ chemical engineering PhD student studying at the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management is using oysters for pollution research in Moreton Bay.

Russell Richards has found the filter feeding oysters are ideal for gauging the impact of algae and nutrients from sewage and grey water runoff.

He has discovered the presence of microscopic algae can affect the ability of the oyster to absorb copper.

Mr Richards has found it is not just dissolved toxic metals in the water that control how much and how fast oysters ingest copper, it is also microscopic algae called phytoplankton, which absorb copper from the water and riverbeds.  The algae are the preferred food for the bay’s most common oyster, the Sydney Rock Oyster.

Mr Richards dropped 120 oysters into the water at the Port of Brisbane Operations Base and another 70 oysters in the cleaner waters of North Stradbroke Island.

He measured their copper contents, algae levels and the quality of surrounding water each month for a year.

After several months, the oysters at the port had ingested about five times more copper than the island oysters, whose level remained unchanged.

Mr Richards has created a computer model to predict how quickly and how much copper is absorbed into an oyster’s flesh in various water qualities.

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