Identifying variables Shulte chose several areas in the lower Chesapeake Bay as his experimental sites. At each site, he constructed artificial reefs of two different heights. He also left portions of each site unrestored to serve as points of comparison. Oysters were allowed to colonize the reefs and the unrestored bay bottom safe from harvesting. His hypothesis was that oysters would survive better in the plankton-rich upper waters -- away from the smothering sediments and hypoxic waters of the bay bottom. Drag the labels to the diagram to identify the components of Shulte’s experiment. Labels may be used once, more than once, or not at all.