Quantifying the Loss of a Marine Ecosystem Service: Filtration by the Eastern Oyster in US Estuaries

Abstract

The oyster habitat in the USA is a valuable resource that has suffered significant declines over the past century. While this loss of habitat is well documented, the loss of associated ecosystem services remains poorly quantified. Meanwhile, ecosystem service recovery has become a major impetus for restoration. Here we propose a model for estimating the volume of water filtered by oyster populations under field conditions and make estimates of the contribution of past (c. 1880-1910) and present (c. 2000-2010) oyster populations to improving water quality in 13 US estuaries. We find that filtration capacity of oysters has declined almost universally (12 of the 13 estuaries examined) by a median of 85 %. Whereas historically, oyster populations achieved full estuary filtration (filtering a volume equivalent or larger than the entire estuary volume within the residence time of the water) in six of the eight estuaries in the Gulf of Mexico during summer months, this is now the case for only one estuary: Apalachicola Bay, Florida. By contrast, while all five estuaries on the North Atlantic coast showed large decreases in filtration capacity, none were achieving full estuary filtration at the time of our c. 1900 historic baseline. This apparent difference from the Gulf of Mexico is explained at least in part by our North Atlantic baseline representing a shifted baseline, as surveyed populations were already much reduced by exploitation in this region.

High metal contents in the fan mussel <em>Pinna nobilis</em> in the Balearic Archipelago (western Mediterranean Sea) and a review of concentrations in marine bivalves (Pinnidae)

“…Hence, resuspension processes influencing the higher organic matter ingestion by P. nobilis (Cabanellas-Reboredo et al 2010) may also intensify the uptake of sediment-associated contaminants, so the differences in water column depth and benthic substrate may influence the bioaccumulation processes. The filtration rate in P. nobilis is unknown, but it has been estimated that oysters are able to reach rates of filtration of 22×10 5 L h -1 in populations with a density of 157.6 individuals m -2 (zu Ermgassen et al 2013). Given the size and characteristics of P. nobilis, the filtration rates are expected to be high.…”

Is Ocean Acidification an Open-Ocean Syndrome? Understanding Anthropogenic Impacts on Seawater pH

“…All coastal engineering communities support intense metabolic processes, including high primary production, respiration and calcification rates, thereby affecting CO 2 , CO 3 − , and alkalinity concentrations and surface water pH. However, many metabolically intense coastal habitats are experiencing global declines in their abundance at rates in excess of 1 % per year (Duarte et al 2008;Ermgassen et al 2013). These shifts in coastal habitats have major, although largely unreported, consequences for coastal pH, affecting both their mean values and variability.…”

Effects of oyster harvest activities on Louisiana reef habitat and resident nekton communities

“…Trays are frequently used to sample oyster reef residents (Lehnert and Allen, 2002;Yeager and Layman, 2011) because of the impracticality of using nets to capture the cryptic species that live within the complex oyster reef matrix. Trays consisted of 0.22-m 2 plastic trays (0.47 m×0.47 m×0.08 m), which had their sides and bottoms lined with 3-mm mesh (Fig.…”