Department of Archaeology, University of York, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom.
Leibniz Zentrum für Archäologie, Mainz 55116, Germany.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2024 Nov 12;121(46):e2410335121. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2410335121. Epub 2024 Oct 28.
Oysters (Ostreidae) play a pivotal role in the health and productivity of marine ecosystems. Their unique ability to filter water, provide habitat, and contribute to nutrient cycling has remained underused in many parts of Europe following the destruction of vast oyster beds in the 19th and 20th centuries. The burgeoning field of oyster restoration for aquaculture has recognized the potential of these bivalves in promoting ecosystem resilience and enhancing biodiversity. Restoring oysters to previous levels requires the establishment of ecological baselines that ideally take into account the long-term changes of animal behavior as well as the surrounding environment prior to significant human intervention, an extremely challenging task. Archaeological shell middens are invaluable baseline archives and provide exclusive insights into past ecosystems. Here, we use demographic information from over 2,000 analyzed European oyster () shells dating from ~5,660 to 2,600 cal BCE (calibrated years BCE), the largest archaeological growth rate dataset of mollusks yet. Through the analysis of size as well as ontogenetic age, we decouple anthropogenic from environmental impacts throughout Denmark. Our data show definitive influence of oyster size-age structure through human harvesting during the Mid-Holocene, with older oysters in the Mesolithic (mean: 4.9 y) than the Neolithic (mean: 3.7 y), irrespective of changes in growth rate. Furthermore, we present the metrics for long-term sustainable harvesting of oysters across environmental and socioeconomic transitions, providing demographic targets for current oyster restoration projects and valuable context in mitigating the impact of modern climatic change.
牡蛎（Ostreidae）在海洋生态系统的健康和生产力中起着关键作用。在 19 世纪和 20 世纪大规模牡蛎床遭到破坏后，它们独特的滤水、提供栖息地和促进养分循环的能力在欧洲许多地区仍未得到充分利用。随着牡蛎养殖业的蓬勃发展，人们已经认识到这些双壳类动物在促进生态系统恢复和增加生物多样性方面的潜力。要将牡蛎恢复到以前的水平，需要建立生态基准，这些基准理想情况下应考虑到在人类进行重大干预之前，动物行为以及周围环境的长期变化，这是一项极具挑战性的任务。考古贝类垃圾场是非常有价值的基准档案，为过去的生态系统提供了独特的见解。在这里，我们利用了来自超过 2000 个分析过的欧洲牡蛎（）壳的人口统计信息，这些壳的年代约为公元前 5660 年至公元前 2600 年（校准后的公元前年），这是迄今为止最大的贝类生长率考古数据集。通过对大小和个体发育年龄的分析，我们在丹麦各地将人为因素与环境影响分离开来。我们的数据显示，在中全新世期间，由于人类的捕捞，牡蛎的大小-年龄结构受到了明确的影响，与新石器时代（平均年龄：4.9 岁）相比，中石器时代的牡蛎年龄更大（平均年龄：4.9 岁），而与生长率的变化无关。此外，我们提出了在环境和社会经济转型期间长期可持续捕捞牡蛎的指标，为当前的牡蛎恢复项目提供了人口统计目标，并为减轻现代气候变化的影响提供了有价值的背景。
