Etymology
The term "mangrove" comes to English from Spanish (perhaps by way of Portuguese), and is likely to originate from Guarani. It was earlier "mangrow" (from Portuguese mangue or Spanish mangle), but this word was corrupted via folk etymology influence of the word "grove".
Ecology
Mangrove swamps are found in tropical and subtropical tidal areas. Areas where mangal occurs includeestuaries and marine shorelines.[5]
The intertidal existence to which these trees are adapted represents the major limitation to the number of species able to thrive in their habitat. High tide brings in salt water, and when the tide recedes, solar evaporation of the seawater in the soil leads to further increases in salinity. The return of tide can flush out these soils, bringing them back to salinity levels comparable to that of seawater.
At low tide, organisms are also exposed to increases in temperature and desiccation, and are then cooled and flooded by the tide. Thus, for a plant to survive in this environment, it must tolerate broad ranges of salinity, temperature, and moisture, as well as a number of other key environmental factors — thus only a select few species make up the mangrove tree community.
About 110 species are considered "mangroves", in the sense of being a tree that grows in such a saline swamp,[5] though only a few are from the mangrove plant genus, Rhizophora. However, a given mangrove swamp typically features only a small number of tree species. It is not uncommon for a mangrove forest in the Caribbean to feature only three or four tree species. For comparison, the tropical rainforest biome contains thousands of tree species, but this is not to say mangrove forests lack diversity. Though the trees themselves are few in species, the ecosystem these trees create provides a home for a great variety of other organisms.
Mangrove plants require a number of physiological adaptations to overcome the problems of anoxia, high salinity and frequent tidal inundation. Each species has its own solutions to these problems; this may be the primary reason why, on some shorelines, mangrove tree species show distinct zonation. Small environmental variations within a mangal may lead to greatly differing methods for coping with the environment. Therefore, the mix of species is partly determined by the tolerances of individual species to physical conditions, such as tidal inundation and salinity, but may also be influenced by other factors, such as predation of plant seedlings by crabs.
Once established, mangrove roots provide an oyster habitat and slow water flow, thereby enhancing sediment deposition in areas where it is already occurring. The fine, anoxic sediments under mangroves act as sinks for a variety ofheavy (trace) metals which colloidal particles in the sediments have scavenged from the water. Mangrove removal disturbs these underlying sediments, often creating problems of trace metal contamination of seawater and biota.
Mangrove swamps protect coastal areas from erosion, storm surge (especially during hurricanes), and tsunamis.[6][7] The mangroves' massive root systems are efficient at dissipating wave energy.[8] Likewise, they slow down tidal water enough so its sediment is deposited as the tide comes in, leaving all except fine particles when the tide ebbs.[9] In this way, mangroves build their own environments.[6] Because of the uniqueness of mangrove ecosystems and the protection against erosion they provide, they are often the object of conservation programs, including national biodiversity action plans.[7]
However, mangrove swamps' protective value is sometimes overstated. Wave energy is typically low in areas where mangroves grow,[10] so their effect on erosion can only be measured over long periods.[8] Their capacity to limit high-energy wave erosion is limited to events such as storm surges and tsunamis.[11] Erosion often occurs on the outer sides of bends in river channels that wind through mangroves, while new stands of mangroves are appearing on the inner sides where sediment is accruing.
The unique ecosystem found in the intricate mesh of mangrove roots offers a quiet marine region for young organisms.[12] In areas where roots are permanently submerged, the organisms they host include algae, barnacles, oysters,sponges, and bryozoans, which all require a hard surface for anchoring while they filter feed. Shrimps and mud lobsters use the muddy bottoms as their home.[13] Mangrove crabs munch on the mangrove leaves, adding nutritients to the mangal muds for other bottom feeders.[14] In at least some cases, export of carbon fixed in mangroves is important in coastal food webs.
Mangrove plantations in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines and India host several commercially important species of fishes and crustaceans. Despite restoration efforts, developers and others have removed over half of the world's mangroves in recent times.
Mangrove forests can decay into peat deposits because of fungal and bacterial processes as well as by the action of termites. It becomes peat in good geochemical, sedimentary and tectonic conditions.[15] The nature of these deposits depends on the environment and the types of mangrove involved. In Puerto Rico the red (Rhizophora mangle), white (Laguncularia racemosa) and black (Avicennia germinans) mangroves occupy different ecological niches and have slightly different chemical compositions so the carbon content varies between the species as well between the different tissues of the plant e.g. leaf matter vs roots
In Puerto Rico there is a clear succession of these three trees from the lower elevations which are dominated by red mangroves to farther inland with a higher concentration of white mangroves.[15] Mangrove forests are an important part of the cycling and storage of carbon in tropical costal ecosystems.[15] Using this it is possible to attempt to reconstruct the environment and investigate changes to the costal ecosystem for thousands of years by using sediment cores. However, an additional complication is the imported marine organic matter that also gets deposited in the sediment due to tidal flushing of mangrove forests.[15]
In order to understand peat formation by mangroves, it is important to understand the conditions they grew in, and how they decayed. Termites are an important part of this decay, and so an understanding of their action on the organic matter is crucial to the chemical stabilization of mangrove peats.
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