Benthic ecology – Laboratoire LEMAR UMR 6539

The flat oyster: a heritage species to be preserved

Originally present along the entire European coastline, the flat oyster, the only oyster native to Europe, formed very dense populations (called oyster beds) creating mini-underwater reefs, comparable to coral reefs in terms of biodiversity. Highly overexploited in the 19th century, then victim of several diseases and predators in the 20th, the species is endangered in the 21st century and with it all the biodiversity it shelters. For a year now, the FOREVER project (“Flat Oyster REcoVERy”) has been working on the ecological restoration of this species in Brittany. One of the actions of this pioneering project consists in designing and deploying artificial reefs specially designed to facilitate the establishment, development and protection of young flat oysters. In early summer 2019, these very first reefs are being deployed in the Rade de Brest and Baie de Quiberon. To be continued…

Find out more about the FOREVER project and other European projects for the conservation and restoration of flat oysters? https://noraeurope.eu and have a look at this article:

Pogoda, B., Brown, J., Hancock, B., Preston, J., Pouvreau, S., Kamermans, P., Sanderson, W., and von Nordheim, H. 2019. The Native Oyster Restoration Alliance (NORA) and the Berlin Oyster Recommendation: bringing back a key ecosystem engineer by developing and supporting best practice in Europe. Aquat. Living Resour. 32: 13. doi:10.1051/alr/2019012.

In open access via this link.

Projet Forever

26/06/2019/by sherve@univ-brest.fr

For a year now, the FOREVER project has been working on the ecological restoration of this species in Brittany.

LIA/IRP BeBEST

thematic partnerships

Contact: Laurent Chauvaud (LEMAR)

The Associated International Laboratory BeBEST focuses on coastal ecology and is situated between the engineering sciences and the environmental sciences. BeBEST’s main objective is to conduct an integrated approach aimed at proposing new concepts in coastal ecology, to develop the analytical tools for testing them, and to implement them to study ecosystems that are inherently contrasting. To do this, BeBEST relies on the close collaboration between 2 institutes, French (INEE) and Quebec (ISMER), and their partner networks, and is part of the Institut Maritime France-Québec with the support of CNRS and UBO, and pool the research resources, know-how and training capacities of two research groups, Canadian (ISMER-UQAR, Rimouski) and French (IUEM-UBO, LEMAR – Brest). BeBEST is built around 4 workshops:

Workshop 1. Sensor development (eco-technology workshop).

Workshop 2. Ecogeochemical workshop.

Workshop 3. Identification and calibration of environmental proxies.

Workshop 4. Natural and anthropogenic constraints on benthic biodiversity and on the structure and functioning of coastal systems.

In addition to these workshops, there is a cross-cutting approach to the development of numerical methods in marine ecology. And in an original way BeBEST brings together private companies but also a group of artists all participating in polar missions or sub-Arctic.

The LIA BeBEST has been renewed in 2021 as an IRP (International Research Project) BeBEST 2 for a period of 5 years.

For more information, the website LIA BeBEST

04/10/2018/by sherve@univ-brest.fr

Franco-Quebec Laboratory for Research and Technological Development in Benthic Ecology