Graduation date: 2006 / This study investigated whether a device commonly used to measure settlement of mussel larvae for ecological studies, the Tuffy™, functions uniformly whether placed in a bed of filamentous algae or on bare rock. During the summers of 2004 and 2005, the number of mussel larvae settling on Tuffys in patches of the filamentous algae Endocladia muricata and Neorhodomela larix, known to be natural substrata for settlement of mussels, was shown to be the same as on Tuffys on adjacent patches of bare rock. The data provide no evidence that adjacent filamentous algae affects settlement to Tuffys and support the utility of this technique for measuring the intensity of larval settlement.