1. Setting Shellfish Restoration Goals To Meet
Society’s Needs
Dr. Boze Hancock
Summer Morlock
The Nature Conservancy NOAA Restoration Center
Global Marine Team
Community-based
Dr. Philine zuErmgassen
Restoration Program
Cambridge University, UK

2. Setting Shellfish Restoration Goals To Meet
Outline
Society’s Needs
Many shellfish sp. declined, RI - and globally
Focus on oysters
Lost fisheries and other lost services
We know how to restore these populations
What do we want to gain?
Ecosystem services
Huge economic value
Include all services in management

3. Loss of oyster habitat
Change in extent - US
zuErmgassen et al. 2012a

4. Loss of oyster habitat
Change in biomass - US
zuErmgassen et al. 2012a

5. Setting Shellfish Restoration Goals To Meet
Society’s Needs

6. Restoration community working at restoration -15 years
WA
CA
Restoration Target
Shellfish reefs & beds
Anadromous fish
Salt marsh
Seagrasses
Coral
Mangrove
Other
VA
AL
LA
FL
USVI
HI
AK
ARRA

7. Restoration works
No longer trying to demonstrate that oyster habitat restoration works
Many examples and species
US- RI, East Coast, West Coast and Gulf of MX
(UK, Germany, Holland, Australia…)
Expand in scale
Anoxic Muck
Recycled Shell
Community
Living
Joe Fudge,Reef Press
Daily

8. Setting Shellfish Restoration Goals To Meet
Society’s Needs

9. Oyster Habitat – How Much Is Enough?
Present
??
What have we lost – Historic baselines
What will we gain – Ecosystem services

10. How much reef is ‘enough’?
A Function of History
•Chesapeake Bay Exec. Order;
Restore 20 tributaries by 2025
•Chesapeake 2010
10 x increase over 1994 by 2010
•Puget Sound Washington
100 acres by 2020
•Hudson Raritan NY/NJ
500 acres by 2015
5000 acres by 2050
•Tampa Bay Florida
Preservation of 44 acres
•Great Bay New Hampshire
20 acres by 2010
Goal
•Context ‘What
is possible’Press
Joe Fudge, Daily

11. Regulating
Provisioning
• Water quality
• Recruits
maintenance
(filters)
• Subsistence and
commercial
fisheries
• Protection of
beaches and
coastlines from
storm surges and
waves.
• Aquaculture
• Fertilizer and
building materials
(lime)
• Reduction
of marsh
shoreline
erosion (breakwaters)
• Jewelry and other
decoration (shells)
• Stabilization of
submerged land
by trapping
sediments
Photo: Diana Garland, TNC Volunteer
Supportive
Cultural
• Cycling of nutrients
• Tourism and recreation
• Fish production
Recruitment, Growth
$$$
(Fishing, WQ)
• Symbolic of coastal
heritage

12. Water Quality = Seston Regulation / grazing
• Oysters remove nearly all
particulates, not just those
ingested
• Aim = measure FR
• Clearance time >
Residence time – Dominant
force in regulating
seston
• Other variables?
Temperature effects
• FR =
8.02W0.58
e(-0.015T-27)
2

13. Measuring filtration effect: in situ fluorometry
to measure ‘seston removal’
WATER FLOW DIRECTION
Grizzle et al., 2006. JSR 25: 643-650.

14. WATER QUALITY “REGULATION” BY SHELLFISH
IS FUNCTION OF ABUNDANCE
Clearance Time (days)
400
300
Residence Times
Delaware:
8
Galveston:
15
Matagorda:
38
Chesapeake:
40
Narragansett
27
No Regulation
200
100
Regulation
D
G
25
MC 50
75
100
Residence Time (days)
Adapted from: R. Dame, 2011.
zuErmgassen et al. 2012

15. Nutrient Cycling
(Dame
1993)

16. Fish production
• Recruitment Enhancement
• Growth Enhancement
• Publication In Prep.
Joe Fudge, Daily Press

17. Shoreline Protection
Oyster reef treatments
reduce wave energy
Sediment deposition

18. Online design tool

20. SettingBay, NH Restoration Goals To Meet
Great Shellfish
Society’s Needs

21. Summary
• Historic condition – scaling, what Is possible
• Quantifying and valuing ES important
• Filtration, Denitrification, Fish Production,
Shoreline Protection - as well as Fishery
• Services have value
• Manage to maximize benefits to RI

22. ?
Dr. Boze Hancock
TNC Global Marine Team
bhancock@tnc.org
401 874 6121