To accurately estimate leaf area index (LAI) in mangrove areas, the selection of appropriate models and predictor variables is critical. However, there is a major challenge in quantifying and mapping LAI using multi-spectral sensors due to the saturation effects of traditional vegetation indices (VIs) for mangrove forests. WorldView-2 (WV2) imagery has proven to be effective to estimate LAI of ...

Anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacterial community structures were investigated in surface (1-2 cm) and lower (20-21 cm) layers of mangrove sediments at sites located immediately to the mangrove trees (S0), 10 m (S1) and 1000 m (S2) away from mangrove trees in a polluted area of the Pearl River Delta. At S0, both 16S rRNA and hydrazine oxidoreductase (HZO) encoding genes of anammox bact...

While the scarcity of up-to-date data on beach litter contamination in the Caribbean has been stressed in several recent studies, we here point to the even greater paucity of published work on litter in mangroves and on the shallow tropical seafloor. During collection of baseline data on beach litter contamination on the Southeastern Caribbean island of Bonaire (Debrot et al. Mar. Poll. Bull., ...

the distribution of extracellular enzyme activities in particle-size fractions of sediments was investigated in a subtropical mangrove ecosystem. five enzymes involved in carbon (c), nitrogen (n), and phosphorus (p) cycling were analyzed in the sand, silt, and clay of sediments. among these fractions, the highest activities of phenol oxidase (pho), β-d glucosidase (glu), and n-acetyl-glucosimin...

The Argentine ant, Linepithema humile, was found established in New Zealand in 1990. During summer 2001/2002 the spread of Argentine ants from urban environments into native habitats was investigated. During an initial large-scale survey around the northern cities of Auckland and Whangarei, Argentine ants were observed at 35 of 211 sites. Eight sites in Auckland were subsequently surveyed in gr...

T ens of millions of tons of CO2 emissions from mangrove deforestation may be avoided each year at an average cost of less than $10 per ton CO2, conclude Siikamäki et al. in their study (1) in PNAS. Avoiding CO2 emission from mangroves would have the beneficial side effect of protecting biodiversity. With careful selection of areas to be protected, increased protection of biodiversity could be ...

Mangroves can capture and store organic carbon and their protection and therefore their restoration is a component of climate change mitigation. However, there are few empirical measurements of long-term carbon storage in mangroves or of how storage varies across environmental gradients. The context dependency of this process combined with geographically limited field sampling has made it diffi...

The origin of carbon substrates used by in situ sedimentary bacterial communities was investigated in an intertidal mangrove ecosystem and in adjacent seagrass beds in Gazi bay (Kenya) by δ13C analysis of bacteria-specific PLFA (phospholipid fatty acids) and bulk organic carbon. Export of mangrove-derived organic matter to the adjacent seagrasscovered bay was evident from sedimentary total orga...

We studied the ecology of four species of coastal marine.homalopsine snakes (OrientalAustralian rear-fanged water snakes) in the Pasir Ris Park mangrove forest, Singapore, using survey methods and radiotelemetry. The snake assemblage atPasir Ris (220 snakes collected) was dominated by Cerberus rynchops (72.7% of total snakes), amedium-sized piscivore. Three species of crustacean eaters were als...