Habitat assessment of a restored oyster reef in South Texas

Dynamics of Restored and Natural Oyster Reefs After a Hurricane

“…The restored reef provided immediate habitat benefits to reef resident epifauna. However, epifaunal density within the first 3 months was below that reported for previously restored reefs (without hurricanes) within 2 km of the study area in the current study (∼630 n m −2 , current study; ∼1,200 n m −2 , George et al, 2015; ∼2,500 n m −2 , Rezek et al, 2017) elsewhere in the Mission-Aransas Estuary (∼1,200 n m −2 , Blomberg et al, 2018) and in the Lavaca-Colorado Estuary, Texas (∼1,500 n m −2 , De Santiago et al, 2019), indicating that initial recruitment rates were constrained. Nevertheless, epifaunal densities on the restored reef 12-18 months after the hurricane met or exceeded those from previously restored reefs (without hurricanes) in the Mission-Aransas Estuary (∼1,900 n m −2 vs. ∼1,000 n m −2 , Graham et al, 2016; 2,000 n m −2 , Rezek et al, 2017) and Lavaca-Colorado Estuary, Texas (∼1,500 n m −2 , De Santiago et al, 2019), indicating the capacity for similar habitat provision within a short period of time.…”

Restored oyster reefs match multiple functions of natural reefs within a decade

“…Choosing references to serve as restoration targets is challenging in degraded systems where population baselines have shifted and historical population levels may be unattainable (Suding, 2011). Although these natural reefs cover only a margin of their historic extent and biomass, they represent the upper end of oyster densities measured in the United States since the collapse of wild commercial oyster fisheries (∼1600−2200 oysters per m 2 ; Luckenbach et al., 2005; Milbrandt et al., 2015; Blomberg et al., 2018), suggesting that these natural reefs are suitable references for a historically degraded system. Nearly every year since 2003, The Nature Conservancy and Virginia Marine Resource Commission have constructed intertidal oyster reefs in the VCR to create 54 restored reefs at 16 sites (Figure 1 and Table S1; 0.02–1.06 ha).…”

Oyster Reef Restoration and Biological Invasions: An Overlooked or a Non-issue?

“…Periodic surveys that emphasize finer taxonomic resolution have the power of detecting alien species early in their establishment phase, which allows for faster and more targeted eradication (David and Krick, 2019). Faunal surveys are typically carried out only after a reef has been restored and because the data collected is used primarily for calculating species richness and diversity, taxonomic integrity is not necessarily a requirement i.e., common names are sometimes used and identification to Genus or even Family rank is considered acceptable (see Blomberg et al, 2018). Taxonomic integrity is critical because there have been numerous instances of "cryptic invasions" in coastal habitats, where a NIS goes undetected due to misidentification with either a native species or another NIS (Morais and Reichard, 2018).…”