Europe’s exhausted oyster reefs ‘once covered area size of Northern Ireland’, reveals new research from Dr Ruth Thurstan.

Convex Seascape Survey scientist, Ruth Thurstan, has led a study to uncover the historical extent of European oyster reefs.

Once as high as a house and covering at least 1.7m hectares (4.2m acres) from Norway to the Mediterranean, these reefs have been destroyed by overfishing, dredging and pollution.

Understanding how human activity influences the seabed and the creatures who live there is an important part of the Convex Seascape Survey. This knowledge will help us to understand how vulnerable seabed carbon is to re-release into the atmosphere as a consequence of disturbance.