Mangrove communities are tropical systems which have fewer species than tropical forests, especially in Latin America and display a single architecture, usually lacking the various strata commonly found in other forest ecosystems. The identification of mangrove communities by orbital data is not a difficult task but the most interesting challenge is to identify themselves by the dominant specie...

Biogeochemical cycling of CH4 was investigated at Lothian Island, one of the relatively pristine islands of Indian Sundarbans and its adjacent Saptamukhi estuary, during June 2010 to December 2012. Intertidal mangrove sediments were highly anoxic and rich in organic carbon. Mean rates of methanogenesis were 3,547 and 48.88μmol m−3 wet sediment d−1, for intertidal (up to 25 cm depth) and sub-tid...

Introduction of non-indigenous species into a well-established ecosystem can be detrimental, resulting in both ecological and economical damage. Two specimens of giant mud crab, Scylla serrata were found for the first time in two geographically distinct mud crab landing sites (Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve, Perak and Kota Marudu Mangrove Forest, Sabah) in Malaysia. Their identities were confir...

Structure and composition of coastal forested wetlands are mainly controlled by local topography and soil salinity. Hydrology plays a major role in relation with tides, seaward, and freshwater inputs, landward. We report here the results of a two-year study undertaken in a coastal plain of the Guadeloupe archipelago (FWI). As elsewhere in the Caribbean islands, the study area is characterized b...

As a first step in developing classification procedures for remotely acquired hyperspectral mapping of mangrove canopies, we conducted a laboratory study of mangrove leaf spectral reflectance at a study site on the Caribbean coast of Panama, where the mangrove forest canopy is dominated by Avicennia germinans, Laguncularia racemosa, and Rhizophora mangle. Using a highresolution spectrometer, we...

Mangrove is an important indicator of biodiversity (Feoli, 2001), its conservation is very important to protect the ecological balance of sea and coastline. More than 90% of the mangrove vegetation species of China in Hainan, and they are about half of the world. But, in recent years, some of mangrove forests haven't been protected well, and result in decreasing. How to monitor the dynamic chan...

Mangrove forests occur along ocean coastlines throughout the tropics, and support numerous ecosystem services, including fisheries production and nutrient cycling. However, the areal extent of mangrove forests has declined by 30–50% over the past half century as a result of coastal development, aquaculture expansion and over-harvesting1–4. Carbon emissions resulting from mangrove loss are uncer...

Sediment microorganisms help create and maintain mangrove ecosystems. Although the changes in vegetation during mangrove forest succession have been well studied, the changes in the sediment microbial community during mangrove succession are poorly understood. To investigate the changes in the sediment microbial community during succession of mangroves at Zhanjiang, South China, we used phospho...

Extremes in δ15N values in mangrove tissues and lichens (range =+4 to −22‰) were measured from a mangrove forest ecosystem located on Twin Cays, offshore islands in Belize, Central America. The N isotopic compositions and concentrations of NH+4 /NH3 in porewater, rainwater, and atmospheric ammonia, and the δ15N of lichens, mangrove leaves, roots, stems, and wood were examined to study the bioge...

Remote sensing plays a critical role in mapping and monitoring mangroves. Aerial photographs and visual image interpretation techniques have historically been known to be the most common approach for mapping mangroves and species discrimination. However, with the availability of increased spectral resolution satellite imagery, and advances in digital image classification algorithms, there is no...