Anja Murray: Native oyster reefs boost marine biodiversity

Ecosystem engineers — sea anemones, barnacles, and more — all find places to make a home in the bustling high-rise living reef

Pacific oysters from oyster farms are settling into estuarine habitats here, becoming naturalised. in inlets such as Lough Swilly in County Donegal. Picture: Eamonn Farrell/Photocall Ireland

Oyster shells are often seen washed up on beaches: rough on the outside, smooth and shimmering on the inside.

Oysters are familiar, even though they are a mollusc that lives in shallow coastal habitats. Many of us know oysters from restaurant menus — but these are mostly farmed pacific oysters, a species native to China, Japan and Korea, introduced here for cultivation in the 1970s.