Rapid Oyster Reef Restoration Gives Hope for Repairing the Sea
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After a century of functional extinction on the Australian mainland, a Flat oyster reef has been successfully restored along a metropolitan Adelaide coastline.
Research by University of Adelaide marine scientists has revealed that the astonishing ecological recovery occurred within two and a half years of the reef being constructed, providing hope for the future of marine ecosystems around the world.
“In late 2020, 14 limestone boulder reefs were constructed along the busiest coastline in South Australia, and it took just two and a half years for the habitat to become a thriving marine metropolis,” says Dr. Dominic McAfee of the University of Adelaide’s School of Biological Sciences.
“The rate of recovery of this particular restoration shows that even heavily degraded marine systems can retain a latent resilience that enables us to achieve rapid environmental recoveries through effective restoration efforts.”
With no functional Flat oyster reef ecosystems on the Australian mainland, Dr. McAfee’s research team used local rocky reef ecosystems and Australia’s sole remaining Flat oyster reef, located in Tasmania, as reference models.
“At the restored reef, we have observed densities of restored native adult Flat oysters that exceeded densities observed on the Tasmanian natural reef,” says Dr. McAfee.
“Communities of macroinvertebrates on the reef restoration represented approximately 60 percent of the biodiversity observed on healthy rocky reef reference systems, while ecological functions, such as filter feeding, are demonstrably increasing.
“The rate of recovery of this benthic ecosystem demonstrates the latent resilience of degraded oyster communities and the capacity for effective marine restorations to achieve rapid ecological recoveries.”
While oyster reefs were once common along Australia’s southern coastline and created temperate reef ecosystems, they have become increasingly rare around the world.
“Destructive human activities, like seafloor Dredging, which raises entire marine communities, have turned seafloors into structurally simplified habitats with little settlement substrata or localized adult oysters to seed recovery,” says Dr. McAfee.
read more at ecomogazine.com.
