Different Kinds of Mangrove Forests Provide Different Goods and Services

Abstract

The goods and services that mangrove forests provide to society are widely understood but may be too generally stated to serve as useful guidelines in decision‐making. Understanding the differences between fringe, riverine, and basin forests may help to focus these guidelines and to determine the best use of a particular forest. Fringe mangroves are important primarily for shoreline protection. Riverine forests, which are likely to be the most productive of the three types of forests, are particularly important to animal and plant productivity, perhaps because of high nutrient concentrations associated with sediment trapping. Basin forests serve as nutrient sinks for both natural and anthropogenically enhanced ecosystem processes and are often important sources of wood products. Exploitation of a forest for one particular reason may make it incapable of providing other goods and services.

Community structure of endophytic fungi of four mangrove species in Southern China

“…There are about 9 orders, 20 families, 27 genera, and roughly 70 species of mangrove plants all over the world, occupying a total estimated area of 137,760 km 2 (Alongi 2002; Giri et al 2011). Mangrove ecosystem is an important part for near-shore exchanges of nutrients and detritus in geomorphology and hydrodynamics (Ewel et al 1998; Valiela et al 2001), provides nursery biotopes for various seabirds and tropical fishes (Kathiresan 2000; Nagelkerken et al 2000), and harbours high diversity of microorganisms (Kathiresan 2000; Shearer et al 2007; Cheng et al 2009; Debbab et al 2013). The mangrove forests also offer different ecological services and economic goods, like timber, fish, shellfish, fuel, and pharmacy material (Ewel et al 1998; Alongi 2002), and improve our understanding to the resilience of ecosystem impacted by global climate change (Alongi 2008).…”

Spatiotemporal Variation in Mangrove Chlorophyll Concentration Using Landsat 8

“…Worldwide, Mexico ranks fourth in terms of mangrove coverage (742,000 ha), with 55% of the coverage distributed along the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. Mangrove forests provide a wealth of direct and indirect ecosystem services such as natural protection barriers and nursery habitat for marine organisms [2][3][4][5]. Further, the ability of mangrove forests to act as a carbon (C) sink has been the focus of recent research.…”

Ecosystem-Wide Impacts of Deforestation in Mangroves: The Urabá Gulf (Colombian Caribbean) Case Study

“…Provisioning services are the most commonly appreciated and include sources of timber, fibers and nonwoody products, fuels (firewood and charcoal), food (fisheries), biochemical products, and freshwater; however, the role of mangroves in climatic and hydrologic modulation, erosion control, protection against natural hazards, soil formation, and nutrient cycling has been recently recognized. In addition, different mangrove types (e.g., riverine, fringing, basin) provide specific services and support coastal fisheries to a different extent [6,7], but they may also provide differential carbon capture capabilities [8][9][10][11].…”