BACKGROUND Mangrove forests are of global ecological and economic importance, but are also one of the world's most threatened ecosystems. Here we present a case study examining the influence of the rhizosphere on the structural composition and diversity of mangrove bacterial communities and the implications for mangrove reforestation approaches using nursery-raised plants. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIP...

Carbon dioxide (CO2) flux is a critical component of the global C budget. While CO2 flux has been increasingly studied in mangroves, better partitioning of components contributing to the overall flux will be useful in constraining C budgets. Little information is available on how CO2 flux may vary with forest age and conditions. We used a combination of C stable isotope labeling and closed cham...

Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics-mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S [1]. Mangrove plants were comprised of true-mangrove plants and semi-mangrove plants. The true-mangrove plants were woody plants, which only grew in the intertidal zone and couldn’t survive in the land. Semi-mang...

Here we embark in a deep metagenomic survey that revealed the taxonomic and potential metabolic pathways aspects of mangrove sediment microbiology. The extraction of DNA from sediment samples and the direct application of pyrosequencing resulted in approximately 215 Mb of data from four distinct mangrove areas (BrMgv01 to 04) in Brazil. The taxonomic approaches applied revealed the dominance of...

Recruitment of non-planted mangrove species into Rhizophora mucronata, Sonneratia alba and Avicennia marina reforested stands (all of them 5 years old) was investigated to assess possibilities for natural colonization. Corresponding bare (denuded or open without mangroves) and natural (relatively undisturbed) sites were used as controls. Interstitial water salinity and temperature (measured at ...

The accumulative partitioning of Pb and Cu in the Rhizophora apiculata was studied randomly in the Setiu mangrove forest, Terengganu. Samples of leaves, barks and roots were collected randomly from the selected studied species. Sediments between the roots of the sampled mangrove plants were also collected. The results from analysis for Rhizophora apiculata shows that the concentration of Pb and...

The sediments of coastal wetlands contain large stores of carbon which are vulnerable to oxidation once disturbed, resulting in high levels of CO2 emissions that may be avoided if coastal ecosystems are conserved or restored. We used a simple model to estimate CO2 emissions from mangrove forests, seagrass beds, and tidal marshes based on known decomposition rates for organic matter in these eco...

Mangroves are blue carbon ecosystems that sequester significant carbon but release CO2, and to a lesser extent CH4, from the sediment through oxidation of organic carbon or from overlying water when flooded. Previous studies, e.g. Leopold et al. (2015), have investigated sediment organic carbon (SOC) content and CO2 flux separately, but could not provide a holistic perspective for both componen...

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...

An attempt was made to establish a mechanistic linkage between chemical speciation of copper and nickel, and their bioavailability in mangrove ecosystem. Kinetic speciation study was performed to determine the concentrations of labile metal-complexes and their dissociation rate constants in mangrove sediments. Concentrations of copper and nickel in the mangrove roots were used as indicators of ...