Experimental design: Treatment (2 levels): oysters were reared in the field in cages which did (predator) or did not (control) contain a blue crab predator isolated to prevent consumptionCage (17 levels): the experiment included 17 cages, 9 assigned to control and 8 to predator treatmentsReplicate: for the first two shell metrics (weight and crushing force), 5 oysters from each cage were sampled individually; due to methodological restrictions, amino acid analysis was conducted on 5 oysters combined