Biodiversity on intertidal oyster reefs in the Hab River mouth: 35 new records from Pakistan

Some Like it Hot: The Ecology, Ecosystem Benefits and Restoration Potential of Oyster Reefs in Tropical Waters

“…At subtropical remnant and restored reefs, however, gastropods are reported as one of the dominant taxa while amphipods are one of the least dominant taxa (Boudreaux et al, 2006;Brown et al, 2014;De Santiago et al, 2019). Similar patterns were found between temperate and subtropical Saccostrea glomerata reefs on the east coast of Australia (Mcleod et al, 2020), and high gastropod and low amphipod abundances were also observed in mixed M. bilineata x M. belcheri reefs in Pakistan, Pinctada radiata beds in Qatar and M. belcheri aquaculture in Thailand (Al-Khayat and Al-Ansi, 2008; Kritsanapuntu and Chaitanawisuti, 2018;Aslam et al, 2020). It is unclear whether temperature is the only driver of these differences.…”

“…Interactions in temperate reefs are known to affect ecosystem function; for example, in Chesapeake Bay, C. virginica and the hooked mussel Ischadium recurvum form mixed-species reefs that have double the filtration capacity of single-species reefs (Gedan et al, 2014;Lipcius and Burke, 2018). Habitat-building mussels have been observed on Pinctada radiata reefs in Qatar (Al-Khayat and Al-Ansi, 2008) as well as mixed Magallana bilineata x Magallana belcheri reefs in Pakistan (Aslam et al, 2020), demonstrating that this association occurs in tropical regions. It is unknown whether there are any interactions, positive or negative, between co-occurring mussels and oysters on tropical reefs.…”

“…Tropical oyster reefs provide habitat for invertebrate communities (Al-Khayat and Al-Ansi, 2008;Aslam et al, 2020), which can be greater in diversity, abundance and biomass compared to adjacent soft sediment habitats (Chan et al, 2022). The effects of oyster reef habitats on invertebrate communities, however, may vary depending on oyster traits and environmental settings (Bateman and Bishop, 2017).…”

“…In Bangladesh, growth of 2 cm per year on installed oyster breakwater reefs kept pace with sea level rise while simultaneously allowing for the harvest of 5.6 kg oysters per m 2 per year (Tangelder et al, 2015). Tropical oyster reefs also provide important habitat for marine invertebrates (Al-Khayat and Al-Ansi, 2008;Aslam et al, 2020) and shelter from heat stress for associated intertidal organisms during low tide (Mcafee et al, 2018). By filtering large volumes of water and particulates, oysters are capable of assimilating and bioaccumulating nutrient loads in the water (Kellogg et al, 2013) and, in developed areas, pollutants, microplastics and other contaminants can be traced by using tropical oysters as bio-indicators (Patterson et al, 2019;Patra et al, 2021).…”