Mangrove forests are highly productive ecosystems but represent low nutrient environments. Nitrogen availability is one of the main factors limiting mangrove growth. Diazotrophs have been identified as key organisms that provide nitrogen to these environments. N2-fixation by such organisms was found to be higher in the mangrove roots than in surrounding rhizosphere. Moreover, previous studies s...

[1] Since the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the role of mangrove forests as natural defenses protecting coastal communities from tsunami disaster has been highlighted. However, some mangrove forests were destroyed by that tsunami. They are expected to have lost their protective functions. In this study, we develop a fragility function to assess the mangrove trees’ vulnerability, expres...

We live in an era of unprecedented ecological change in which ecologists and natural resource managers are increasingly challenged to anticipate and prepare for the ecological effects of future global change. In this study, we investigated the potential effect of winter climate change upon salt marsh and mangrove forest foundation species in the southeastern United States. Our research addresse...

Mangrove ecosystems are threatened by climate change. We review the state of knowledge of mangrove vulnerability and responses to predicted climate change and consider adaptation options. Based on available evidence, of all the climate change outcomes, relative sea-level rise may be the greatest threat to mangroves. Most mangrove sediment surface elevations are not keeping pace with sea-level r...

Mangrove forests have the potential to export carbon to adjacent ecosystems but whether mangrove-derived organic carbon (OC) would enhance the soil OC storage in seagrass meadows adjacent to mangroves is unclear. In this study we examine the potential for the contribution of mangrove OC to seagrass soils on the coast of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. We found that seagrass meadows adjacent to mangr...

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...

Mangrove sediments act as site of organic carbon accumulation in estuary. This paper aims to determine the distribution of OC content in mangrove sediment in mangrove root zone. Three replicate samples of mangrove sediment were collected from seven stations. Six in-situ water quality parameters were measured during low tide along the river. The OC content in mangrove sediment varied significant...

Current, accurate, and reliable information on the areal extent and spatial distribution of mangrove forests in the Philippines is limited. Previous estimates of mangrove extent do not illustrate the spatial distribution for the entire country. This study, part of a global assessment of mangrove dynamics, mapped the spatial distribution and areal extent of the Philippines' mangroves circa 2000....

Ecosystems in the tropical coastal zone exchange particulate organic matter (POM) with adjacent systems, but differences in this function among ecosystems remain poorly quantified. Seagrass beds are often a relatively small section of this coastal zone, but have a potentially much larger ecological influence than suggested by their surface area. Using stable isotopes as tracers of oceanic, terr...

For the period 1996-2010, we provide the first indication of the drivers behind mangrove land cover and land use change across the (pan-)tropics using time-series Japanese Earth Resources Satellite (JERS-1) Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) and Advanced Land Observing Satellite (ALOS) Phased Array-type L-band SAR (PALSAR) data. Multi-temporal radar mosaics were manually interpreted for evidence of...