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This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Cynthia Graber. This will just take a minute.

The Chesapeake Bay could get helped by a new antipollution expert: farmed oysters². For decades, the Chesapeake has been plagued by excess nutrients³, such as nitrogen, from agricultural and municipal run-off. The nutrients feed algal blooms, which suck up the oxygen in the water. And those oxygen-poor waters no longer support the Bay’s rich biodiversity.

The Chesapeake used to be home to wild oysters, but 99 percent of them are gone. The tasty bivalves are known for removing excess phytoplankton from water and sequestering⁴ nutrients in their shells and flesh. So scientists from Virginia Commonwealth⁵ University measured the nutrient-chomping potential of the Eastern oyster¹ Crassostrea virginica.

They tested dried tissue and shells from oysters in two aqua-culture sites, (which) turns out that if a farmed oyster grows to 76 millimeters, it’s a pretty effective water filter. Eight large-scale oyster farms could clean a ton of nitrogen from the Chesapeake. The study was published in the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Such farming won’t make the bay pristine⁶ again, but the researchers say the oysters are effective at cleaning the area where they’re grown. And so for a biologically better Chesapeake, pass the hot sauce.

Thanks for the minute. For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Cynthia Graber.