Shellfish reefs are among the most degraded of all coastal habitats due mainly to historical wild commercial harvest, sedimentation, introduced species, and disease. Until the 20th century, most estuaries and bays across southern Australia contained shellfish reefs. Efforts to restore these endangered ecosystems commenced in the mid‐2010s. This study reports ecological responses to some of the first restored shellfish reefs in southern Australia comprising Ostrea angasi (native flat oysters) and Mytilus galloprovinciali s (blue mussels). Here we report the methods used to restore 22.7 ha of shellfish reef area (restoration footprint of 18,027 m 2 ) at locations in Victoria (Port Phillip Bay), South Australia (Gulf St Vincent), Western Australia (Oyster Harbour) and provide an overview of the ecological trajectory and biodiversity outputs from the restoration areas compared to control sites across the period 2017–2020. We document progress toward restoration benchmarks for shellfish, fish, and species richness metrics. The early results of these restoration efforts demonstrate progression toward restoration targets due to increasing shellfish density and size, as well as the development of the associated ecological community, including fish, mobile invertebrates, and epifauna. Finally, we identify the predominant species in the associated faunal community, including species of commercial or recreational interest such as Chrysophrys auratus (pink snapper).
Bayraktarov et al. (Thu,) studied this question.