Habitat Suitability Index Models: Gulf of Mexico American Oyster

The American or eastern oyster (Crassostrea virrinica [Gmelin]), a bivalve in the family Ostreidae, is an important commercia and recreational species along the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts of North America and other areas (U.S. Pacific coast and Hawaii) where it has been introduced (Galtsoff 1964). It evolved over the last 25 million years (Miocene and Pliocene epochs) from an ancestral, Atlantic-Pacific species that also gave rise to the Central American oyster of the Pacific coast, Crassostrea corteziensis (Hertlein) (Stenzel 1971). It evolved to fill a eurytopic niche in coastal estuaries where it forms massive reefs in nearshore bays, sounds, lagoons, and river mouths. Its existence depends on suitable substratum (cultch and firm bottom sediments) and acceptable sal-inity conditions. The location and distribution of oyster reefs in a salt marsh-estuari ne ecosystem are not acci denta 1; rather, they result from the interacti on of many bi 01 ogi ca 1, chemica1, geo1ogi ca1, and phys i ca 1 processes (Butler 1954a; Marshall 1954; Bahr and Lanier 1981).