This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 1 of this Preprint.
Downloads
Supplementary Files
Authors
Abstract
Anthropogenic activities have impacted marine ecosystems at extraordinary scales. Biogenic reef ecosystems built by the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) typically declined prior to scientific monitoring. Collating >1,600 records published over 350 years, we created a highly resolved (10km2) map of historical oyster reef presence across its biogeographic range, including documenting abundant reef habitats along the coasts of France, Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Areal extent data were available from just 26% of locations, yet totalled >1.7 million hectares (median reef size = 30ha, range 0.01 - 1,536,000ha), with 190 associated macrofauna species from 13 phyla described. Our analysis demonstrates that oyster reefs were once a dominant three-dimensional feature of European coastlines, with their loss pointing to a fundamental restructuring and ‘flattening’ of coastal and shallow-shelf seafloors. This unique empirical record demonstrates the highly degraded nature of European seas and provides key baseline context for international restoration commitments.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.32942/X20W43
Subjects
Biodiversity, Marine Biology, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Keywords
Biogenic reef, Ecosystem collapse, environmental history, historical ecology, shifting baselines, Ostrea edulis, shifting baseline
Dates
Published: 2023-12-07 09:17
Last Updated: 2023-12-07 09:17
License
CC BY Attribution 4.0 International
Additional Metadata
Language:
English
Conflict of interest statement:
None
Data and Code Availability Statement:
Data is posted to figshare and will be made publicly available upon publication. The dataset is available upon request until then.
There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article.