A Robust, Spatially Explicit Model for Identifying Oyster Restoration Sites: Case Studies on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts

The eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) is a reef-forming organism commonly found in estuaries throughout the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America. Eastern oyster reefs provide several ecosystem services, including water filtration, habitat diversity, and storm surge protection, among others. Oyster abundance has declined precipitously during the past century along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts as a result of overfishing, disease and predation, and large-scale human-mediated events. Given the importance of oysters, both ecologically and economically, there have been significant efforts during the past 20 y to reestablish and/or restore oysters to historical levels. Successful reef restoration depends on choosing sites that optimize survival, which requires an understanding of the environmental factors that influence the life stage of an oyster. For most restoration projects, time and budget constraints prevent long-term field studies; therefore, modeling is often used to determine the best...