Chasing windows of opportunity for habitat formation: spatial and temporal determinants of oyster settlement rates

The establishment and recovery of biogenic habitats in marine and terrestrial environments often rely on the co-occurrence of periods of suitable environmental conditions and propagule availability (e.g., seeds, larvae). However, despite the importance of these ‘windows of opportunity’ for species colonization, the temporal and spatial variability of these periods across environmental gradients remains poorly understood. Eastern Australian estuaries transit between periods of floods and droughts, which strongly affect their salinity regimes. Here, we investigate how variations in salinity and temperature influence the frequency and duration of windows of opportunity for settlement and survival of reef-building oyster Saccostrea glomerata across an estuarine salinity gradient in eastern Australia. Oyster settlement probabilities were calculated using empirical data from a 2-year settlement study performed at 3 estuarine sites along a salinity gradient. Time series of salinity and tempera..., , # Data from: Chasing windows of opportunity for habitat formation: spatial and temporal determinants of oyster settlement rates

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.vmcvdnd51](10.5061/dryad.vmcvdnd51)

## Description of the data and file structure

This repository contains the data from the article:

Esquivel-Muelbert & Bishop (2025). Chasing windows of opportunity for habitat formation: spatial and temporal determinants of oyster settlement rates

Data description:

We investigate how variations in salinity and temperature influence the occurrence of windows of opportunity for settlement and survival of reef-building oyster *Saccostrea glomerata* across an estuarine salinity gradient in eastern Australia. Oyster settlement probabilities were calculated using empirical data from a 2-year settlement study performed at 3 estuarine sites along a salinity gradient. Time series of salinity and temperature from 2010 to 2024 were analysed for windows of opportunity for oyster settlement, defined as pe...,