The Eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica, plays multiple complex and instrumental roles in the coastal ecology of the northwestern Atlantic, and an economically and culturally important fishery --in 2015 alone it was valued at approximately $197 million USD. Oyster reef restoration has also become a priority for protecting developed areas along the Atlantic coast, especially in urban areas that have witnessed the rise of superstorms like Sandy (2012) and Florence (2018). Unsurprisingly, as a direct reflection of oysters’ multi-faceted ecological utility, the different parties involved in restoration efforts are similarly varied. Engineers, marine scientists, educators, governmental bodies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), coastal residents, fishers, and many others have added their voices to the growing desire to use oyster restoration as a mechanism for shoreline remediation and water purification. Yet oysters that are grown for fisheries consumption cannot simultaneously serve the ecological services of shoreline remediation or water purification because harvesting the oysters requires removing the shells and consuming oysters that have been, for instance, sequestering heavy metals, is a dubious culinary choice.
Our study therefore asks, what differences do we see in the prioritization of various ecosystem services do we see among three sets of stakeholders (NGOs, Government Agencies, and Academics) in two different areas: Rhode Island, where oysters are primarily raised for consumption, and The New York City estuary, where oysters are primarily grown for habitat remediation.
Results/Conclusions
Using a technique called Fuzzy Cognitive Mental Modeling we compare models of ecosystem design and services among six different stadholder groups. Despite oysters in Rhode Island and New York City primarily being used for different purposes, we find that the greatest similarities not along geographic, but rather along occupational lines. Thus, for example, NGOs in Rhode Island and New York City tend to have more similar views about the structure of oyster ecosystem services than say Academics and NGOs in Rhode Island do. These findings highlight the institutional inertial, preparation, and memories of stakeholder groups and demonstrate that local collaboration my be hampered by implicit differences in prioritization and conceptualization of the multiple facets of an oyster ecosystem.