Monitoring of oyster and epifauna populations at a constructed oyster reef (Half Moon Reef), Matagorda Bay, Texas from 2014 to 2019

Twenty-three hectares of hard reef structure were restored at Half Moon Reef in 2014 by The Nature Conservancy and US Army Corps of Engineers to support oyster production and habitat provision. The reef complex was designed as a series of 27 parallel rows of dimensions 189 m long x 18 m wide x 1-1.5 m high, with a repeating pattern of distance between rows of 9 m, 18 m, and 27 m.

Monitoring of the reef was carried out quarterly (four times yr-1) from April 2014 to January 2019 at six fixed sampling sites on the constructed reef (HMA-HMF) and six control sites located 150 m away. Divers collected a minimum of two substrate pieces from each reef site to measure coverage by oysters and other encrusting organisms. Encrusting species were identified to LPIL (usually species) and counted. Shell height was measured for oysters larger than 5 mm. Oysters >25 mm shell height were assessed to determine prevalence and intensity of Perkinsus marinus, the protozoan parasite responsible for Dermo disease.

Resident mobile fauna (>1 mm) were collected using sampling trays that were deployed at six restored reef sites, and six unrestored sites on unstructured bottom located approximately 200 m away from the reef. Resident fauna were collected from the trays by divers using a surface-operated suction sampler to collect mobile epifauna from within each tray (Honda 160 cc semi-trash pump with 5.1 cm ports).

Epifauna (> 1 mm) indirectly associated with the reef (hereafter termed associated fauna) were sampled using a 0.72 m-wide modified epibenthic sled at 4 locations adjacent (≤ 13 m) to the restored reef and 4 locations distant (200 m away) from the restored reef. The epibenthic sled was towed at approximately 4 km hr-1 for 200 m (total area sampled= 144 m2).

Discrete measurements of the environmental variables (e.g., temperature, dissolved oxygen , and salinity were made at the surface and the bottom of the water column at multiple sampling stations on each sampling date using a YSI ProDSS or Hydrolab data sonde.

This dataset supports the following publications:

1) De Santiago, K., Palmer, T. A., Dumesnil, M., & Beseres Pollack, J. (2019). Rapid development of a restored oyster reef facilitates habitat provision for estuarine fauna. Restoration Ecology, 27(4), 870–880. doi:10.1111/rec.12921

2) Marshall, D. A., Lebreton, B., Palmer, T., De Santiago, K., & Beseres Pollack, J. (2019). Salinity disturbance affects faunal community composition and organic matter on a restored Crassostrea virginica oyster reef. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 226, 106267. doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2019.106267

3) Beseres Pollack, J., T.A. Palmer and A.E. Williams. (2021). Medium-term monitoring reveals effects of El Niño Southern Oscillation climate variability on local salinity and faunal dynamics on a restored oyster reef. PLoS ONE. 16(8): e0255931. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0255931