Rapid oyster reef restoration gives hope for repairing the sea
After a century of functional extinction on the Australian mainland, a Flat oyster reef has been successfully restored along a metropolitan Adelaide coastline.
Dr Dominic McAfee and Professor Sean Connell diving at a reef. Photo credit: Stefan Andrews
Research by 成人大片 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.
鈥淚n late 2020, 14 limestone boulder reefs were constructed聽by The Nature Conservancy in collaboration with the South Australian Department for Environment and Water 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,鈥 says of the 成人大片鈥檚 .
鈥淭he 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.鈥
With no functional Flat oyster reef ecosystems on the Australian mainland, and Dr McAfee鈥檚 research team used local rocky reef ecosystems and Australia鈥檚 sole remaining Flat oyster reef, located in Tasmania, as reference models.
鈥淎t the restored reef, we have observed densities of restored native adult Flat oysters that exceeded densities observed on the Tasmanian natural reef,鈥 says Dr McAfee.
鈥淐ommunities of macroinvertebrates on the reef restoration represented approximately 60 per cent of the biodiversity observed on healthy rocky reef reference systems, while ecological functions, such as filter feeding, are demonstrably increasing.
鈥淭he 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.鈥
While oyster reefs were once common along Australia鈥檚 southern coastline and created temperate reef ecosystems, they have become increasingly rare around the world.
鈥淒estructive human activities, like seafloor dredging, which razes entire marine communities, have turned seafloors into structurally simplified habitats with little settlement substrata or localised adult oysters to seed recovery,鈥 says Dr McAfee.
鈥淕lobally, 85 per cent of oyster reefs have been lost, and on many coastlines these ecosystems were near obliterated.鈥
The reefs are particularly important for the function oysters play in the ecosystem.
鈥淥ysters are ecological superheroes that function like trees in a forest or coral in tropical seas,鈥 says Dr McAfee.
鈥淭hey provide habitat for many other marine animals, boost fish production, protect shorelines from stormy seas, and even clean the water with their filter feeding.鈥
Dr McAfee says the results of this project will have implications for lost oyster-reef ecosystems around the country.
鈥淲e've lost oyster reefs over thousands of kilometres of Australian coastline. This rapid recovery shows we can bring them back rapidly and can serve as a template for other projects on how to bring these reefs back,鈥 Dr McAfee says.
The results of the reef restoration have been published in the .
Media contacts:
Dr Dominic McAfee, Postdoctoral Researcher, Southern Seas Ecology Laboratory, 成人大片. Phone: +61 0420 995 406, Email: dominic.mcafee@adelaide.edu.au
Johnny von Einem, Media Coordinator, The 成人大片. Mobile: +61 0481 688 436, Email: johnny.voneinem@adelaide.edu.au