Oyster reefs provide economic benefits such as food, habitat for other fish, improved water quality, stabilized shorelines, and increased biodiversity. Oyster reefs have seen an 85% decline globally over the past century, which has led to recent restoration efforts. This study aims to conduct a Benefit-Cost Analysis (BCA) for the various ecosystem services provided by restored oyster reefs. The data in this study are obtained from two sources. The first source is economic benefits estimates from the economic valuation literature, which will be applied using the benefit transfer method. The benefit transfer method takes benefit estimates from existing studies and adjusts them to present needs. The second source is project construction and monitoring reports for 13 completed or proposed oyster restoration projects in Alabama and Mississippi. These projects represent the set of larger-scale projects in the study area, with planning and construction costs ranging from $3.2 million to $50 million per project. One contribution of this study is to determine the extent to which the choice of benefit transfer method (value transfer, function transfer, or meta-analysis regression) impacts benefits estimates for the ecosystem services of restored oyster reefs. The findings of this study can serve as a template for evaluating future restoration efforts.

The objective of this study is to gauge public support for oyster reef restoration throughout the five U.S. Gulf Coast states. The Gulf Coast is the leading commercial oyster producing region in the United States, accounting for approximately 52% of the total commercial oyster harvest in 2021. The global decline of oyster reefs is estimated at 50–90% of historical levels, prompting restoration efforts and studies. This work will estimate the economic value associated with oyster reef restoration. Estimates will be based on data obtained from a survey of approximately 6,800 Gulf Coast households regarding proposed oyster reef restoration programs in each Gulf state. Considering the future outcome of oyster harvests, we employed different scales in our survey. We will test how each scale affects households' willingness to pay. One methodological contribution is a test of how uncertainty in the proposed scenario outcome affects the willingness to pay of households. Uncertainty, in this case, is providing households with range values for the future outcome of the oyster harvest. The survey collected information on general bids, households' saltwater fishing experiences, and households' demographic information. Statistical analysis and regression methods will be applied to estimate the willingness to pay of households towards oyster reef restoration. Our policy contribution is to provide state specific estimates of the benefits of restoration that can be used to analyze the return on investment of ongoing restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast. The average cost of recent oyster reef restoration projects is $299,999 per hectare.

Many prey species can adjust morphology to reduce predation risk, but the benefits of changing morphology to thwart predators are poorly understood, particularly when the benefits may be variable in time and space. Using predator cues to enhance prey defenses may improve survival of cultivated species and enhance species restoration efforts, but assessment of such benefits is needed. We examined how raising a foundation species, oysters (Crassostrea virginica), under hatchery conditions with cues from two common predator species (blue crabs – Callinectes sapidus, and oyster drills – Stramonita haemastoma), can improve survival across a variety of predator regimes and environmental conditions. Oysters responded to crabs by growing shells that were 15% larger and 47% stronger than controls, while drills triggered shell changes in which shell size increased only 5% but strength was 55% greater than controls. Predator-induced changes significantly increased oyster survival up to 600%. Survivorship was maximized when cue source was matched with local predator regime, but crab cues consistently improved survival while drill cues sometimes produced maladaptive responses. Overall, our findings demonstrate the utility of using predator cues to enhance the survival of target species across landscapes and provide insight into the role of phenotypic plasticity in structuring population dynamics.