Oysters are keystone organisms in estuaries around the world, influencing water quality, constructing habitat and providing food for humans and wildlife. Yet their populations in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere have dramatically declined after more than a century of overfishing, pollution, disease and habitat degradation. Smithsonian scientists and colleagues, however, have conducted the first bay-wide, millennial-scale study of oyster harvesting in the Chesapeake, revealing a sustainable model for future oyster restoration. Their research is published in the May 23 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Despite providing food for humans for millennia, little is known about Chesapeake Bay oyster populations prior to the late 1800s. Using fossil, archaeological…