How long does oyster shell last on an oyster reef?

A reduction in population abundance, brought on by an unprecedented 6 years of low recruitment, has reduced shell input through natural mortality on Delaware Bay oyster beds. Quantitative stock surveys provide an estimate of surficial shell over the same time period, permitting the reconstruction of the time history of shell since 1998 and estimation of the rates of shell addition and loss. Shell loss rates were unexpectedly high. In most cases, half of the shell added to an oyster bed in Delaware Bay in a given year is lost over a subsequent period of 2–10 years. Unexpectedly, the shortest half-lives, typically two to three years, are at intermediate salinities. Half-lives increase upbay into lower salinity and downbay into higher salinity to about 10 years. Minimal shell doubling times were calculated under the assumption of no shell loss, a maximum accretion rate. Minimal doubling times vary from somewhat less than a decade to more than a score of years. Doubling times of decadal scale emphasize that shell has the potential to accumulate rapidly on human time scales. The rarity of definitive documentation of shell accumulation, in terms of reef vertical accretion or lateral expansion, can only be explained if most shell produced yearly does not long remain recognizably intact. Doubling times are not rapid on the scale of oyster generation time, however. Management of essential fish habitat in the estuarine realm must include management of the shell budget and management of commercial shell-producing species must include the provision of animals as carbonate producers for habitat maintenance. Shell, at least in estuarine habitats, may have low preservational potential, even in areas that, when preserved, will appear to be shellbeds. The biases in the fossil record may not be minimized in shell-rich environments of preservation because shelliness does not imply good preservability.