What hap-pens when a drought in Florida estu-aries causes a rise in the salt levels in water? Fewer wild oys-ters appear on restau-rant menus, for starters.
New research from North-eastern Uni-ver-sitymarine and envi-ron-mental sci-ences pro-fessor David Kimbro and grad-uate stu-dent Hanna Gar-land, pub-lished in PLOS ONE, links the dete-ri-o-ra-tion of oyster reefs in Florida’s Matanzas River Estuary to a pop-u-la-tion out-break of car-niv-o-rous conchs and high water salinity—or saltiness—caused by a pro-longed regional drought.
This isn’t just bad news for oyster lovers.
“Coastal ecosys-tems around the world depend greatly on the ser-vices pro-vided by oys-ters,” Kimbro said. “They are impor-tant for the sta-bi-liza-tion of shore-lines, fil-tra-tion of coastal water, pro-tec-tion of impor-tant eco-nom-i-cally valu-able fishes and inver-te-brates, and the removal of excess nitrogen.”
As a result of degra-da-tion, over-har-vesting, and human activity, the global abun-dance of this habitat has declined by 85 per-cent, according to the Nature Con-ser-vancy. Today, most of the world’s remaining reefs are con-cen-trated in only six eco-regions—four in the United States.
“Luckily, there are gov-ern-ment and non-？？government-？？led efforts that will begin to restore this habitat in 15 dif-ferent states,” Kimbro said. “But if an area to be restored con-tains or is likely to develop an out-break of conchs like the one in Matanzas, then the restora-tion effort will fail, regard-less of the expen-di-ture of effort or expense, unless the salinity and conch problem is first solved.”
When one of these eco-？？regions expe-ri-ences an envi-ron-mental stress, like that seen in the Floridian estuary, the impact can be felt across industry and ecosystems.