Centre for Ecology and Conservation, University of Exeter, Cornwall, UK.
Conservation & Policy, Zoological Society of London, London, UK.
Sci Data. 2024 Nov 5;11(1):1198. doi: 10.1038/s41597-024-04048-8.
Ocean ecosystems have been subjected to anthropogenic influences for centuries, but the scale of past ecosystem changes is often unknown. For centuries, the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis), an ecosystem engineer providing biogenic reef habitats, was a culturally and economically significant source of food and trade. These reef habitats are now functionally extinct, and almost no memory of where or at what scales this ecosystem once existed, or its past form, remains. The described datasets present qualitative and quantitative extracts from written records published between 1524 and 2022. These show: (1) locations of past flat oyster fisheries and/or oyster reef habitat described across its biogeographical range, with associated levels of confidence; (2) reported extent of past oyster reef habitats, and; (3) species associated with these habitats. These datasets will be of use to inform accelerating flat oyster restoration activities, to establish reference models for anchoring adaptive management of restoration action, and in contributing to global efforts to recover records on the hidden history of anthropogenic-driven ocean ecosystem degradation.
海洋生态系统受到人为影响已有数个世纪之久，但过去生态系统变化的规模往往未知。几个世纪以来，欧洲扁牡蛎（Ostrea edulis）作为一种提供生物礁生境的生态系统工程师，一直是文化和经济上重要的食物和贸易来源。这些礁生境现在已经功能性灭绝，几乎没有人记得这个生态系统曾经存在的地点和规模，或者它过去的形态。所描述的数据集提供了 1524 年至 2022 年期间发表的书面记录中的定性和定量摘录。这些数据显示：（1）在其生物地理范围内描述的过去扁牡蛎渔业和/或牡蛎礁生境的位置，以及相关的置信度；（2）过去牡蛎礁生境的报告范围；以及（3）与这些生境相关的物种。这些数据集将有助于加速扁牡蛎的恢复活动，为恢复行动的适应性管理建立参考模型，并为全球努力恢复有关人为驱动的海洋生态系统退化的隐藏历史的记录做出贡献。
