Identifying knowledge gaps for successful restorative aquaculture of Ostrea edulis: a bibliometric analysis

Abstract

Background: Active restoration is necessary to enhance the recovery of Ostrea edulis reefs, which contribute to many ecosystem services. Restoration can be integrated within aquaculture practices, bringing positive environmental changes while maximising space utilisation. The restoration project MAREA (MAtchmaking Restoration Ecology and Aquaculture) aims to bring back O. edulis in the North-West Adriatic addressing the feasibility of its cultivation. Both successful restoration and sustainable aquaculture require a thorough understanding of the ecological needs, as the requirements of both activities need to be harmonized. Therefore, one of the preliminary activities before embarking on the pilot was the completion of a thorough literature review to identify research directions and gaps required for ‘restorative aquaculture’, aiming to gather the most up to date O. edulis knowledge on a global and local scale. Methods: Internet (Web of Science, Scopus, Google scholar) and physical resources (libraries) were searched for all available global and local knowledge on O. edulis. Bibliometrix was used to identify the main research topics using keywords, titles, and abstracts analyses. Studies were then manually screened and summarised to extract knowledge specific to restoration and aquaculture. Results: While restoration studies are recent, evidence for the loss of this species and potential causes (and solutions) have been discussed since the end of the 19th century. While diseases were a leading cause for reef loss, substratum limitation appears to be one of the leading limiting factors for both restoration and aquaculture of O. edulis, and was already mentioned in the early texts that were found. Conclusions: The review highlighted that restoration success and aquaculture feasibility depend upon the crucial stage of settlement. The project ‘MAREA’ will therefore increase its focus on this stage, both in terms of timing, location, and materials for settlement plates placement.

Fifty years of research to counter the decline of the European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis): a review of French achievements and prospects for the restoration of remaining beds and revival of aquaculture production

“…1). In a recent bibliographic analysis on O. edulis (Bertolini and Pastres, 2022) it is striking that Bonamia ostreae is the top listed keyword, with at least 13% of the studies gathered being about Bonamia infection. Surprisingly, there have been very few studies in France on the ecology and physiology of this species and its habitat since the 1970 s, as shown in Table 1.…”

Northern Europe’s suitability for offshore European flat oyster (Ostrea edulis) habitat restoration based on population dynamics

“…In Europe, flat oysters (Ostrea edulis) have been identified as a priority species for protection and habitat restoration (Haelters and Kerckhof, 2009) due to their potential to engineer habitats (Todorova et al, 2009;Kregting et al, 2020), and promote biodiversity (Christianen et al, 2018;Lown et al, 2021;Hemraj et al, 2022). As such, they are the focus of several flat oyster naturebased solution projects, restorative flat oyster aquaculture projects (Bertolini and Pastres, 2022; H2020 UNITED, Horizon ULTFARMS) and a multitude of habitat creation or restoration projects in many European countries. (https://noraeurope.eu).…”