Interspecific associations of mangrove species and their preferences for edaphic factors and water quality

Abstract

Abstract. Marpaung BA, Budiadi, Pertiwiningrum A, Lestari LD, Nurjanto HH, Widiyatno. 2022. Interspecific associations of mangrove species and their preferences for edaphic factors and water quality. Biodiversitas 23: 4626-4635. Scientists from different regions have reported failures of mangrove restorations that were predicted due to the unsuitability of the species for the habitats. Habitat preferences should become an important consideration for mangrove restoration and management. This study aimed to find interspecific associations between species and examine the edaphic factors and water quality suitable for mangroves. Eight research stations (and 24 sample plots) were established purposively based on the vegetation structure and salinity levels in successful mangrove restorations in East Lampung in 2020. In each plot, vegetal data and sediment and water samples were taken. The species domination was analyzed using the important value index (IVI), and interspecific associations were determined using a 2x2 contingency table. The edaphic factors and water quality were analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) to find factors that had significant correlations among others. The effects of the edaphic factors and water quality on species regeneration were analyzed using multiple linear regression by backward elimination to develop a model of habitat preferences for mangroves. Based on the results, Avicennia marina and Rhizophora sp. were the dominant species in all the zones. Still, the lack of interspecific association ( ) showed that both species had different preferences for the habitat. We found four principal components (PCs) of edaphic factors—i.e., the environmental (soil and surface) temperature, dusty clay and Ca, inorganic nitrogen (NH4-N and NO3-N), and Mg—and two PCs of water quality, i.e., nontoxic pollutants (total suspended solids and turbidity) and anthropogenic factors (NO2-N and PO4-P), as predictors for multiple linear regression. The seedlings of A. marina had no specific preferences for edaphic factors but significantly preferred nontoxic pollutants (R2 = 0.619), while the seedlings of Rhizophora spp. significantly preferred a specific environmental temperature, dusty clay and Ca, and inorganic nitrogen (R2 = 0.768), and nontoxic pollutants (R2 = 0.755). Combining A. marina and Rhizophora spp. in mangrove restorations should be avoided. Therefore, spatial planting patterns or sequential planting based on the succession stages of the habitat could be established.

Composition, diversity and association of pioneer plants on post-landslide areas in Palopo, South Sulawesi, Indonesia

“…The IVI value indicates species that dominated in each habitus and provides an overview of the role of a species in the community. A higher IVI value reflects the significant contribution of the species to the community and its habitat preferences (Rani et al 2018;Marpaung et al 2022).…”

Land cover changes, biomass loss, and predictive causes of massive dieback of a mangrove plantation in Lampung, Sumatra

“…The weather data were extracted from power.larc.nasa.gov on 29 January 2022. The dominant species in the area was Avicennia marina, with some Rhizophora stylosa and Rhizophora mucronata, and also a small number of Excoecaria agallocha (Marpaung et al, 2022). In addition, there were two emerging activities by the people in the location that may have impacted the mangrove ecosystem, that is, maintaining the fishponds and ecotourism.…”

“…The pre-dieback condition of the mangrove ecosystem could be seen in Marpaung et al (2022). Field data collection was conducted over a 2-year period in August 2020 and November 2021, including vegetation measurement (species identification, tree diameter, and height measurement) and microsite data measurement using 10 x 10 m measurement plots with three replications for each research station, at Station 2 (S2) to Station 8 (S8) (see Marpaung et al, 2022). Station 1 is a mangrove recruitment area or seedling plantation area, which was then excluded from this research.…”

“…In 2007-2009 recorded four to six dry months (with <100 mm/month) of the years, or the annual rainfall intensities below the decade average caused less water flushing inside the plantation. Based on the assessment of water quality on August 2020, in the dieback area, the concentration of total suspended solids (TSS) ranged from 175.33 to 652.00 mg/L and water turbidity ranged from 226.4 to 915.0 NTU (Marpaung et al, 2022). The concentration of TSS was greatly exceeding than the seawater quality standard in Indonesia (80 mg/L) and the concentration in other locations, such as mangroves in Malaysia, the Gulf of Jakarta, and the Gulf of Lampung (Marpaung, 2021), indicating the occurrence of water inundation assessed by the abundance of dissolved material in the water.…”

“…The waste from extensive fishponds contains an accumulation of residual of inorganic and organic fertilizers, and feeds (Páez-Osuna, 2001;Hasan et al, 2007), including nitrogen (N) compound that excessively enters the mangrove ecosystem. Before the dieback event, the inorganic nitrogen in the locations is as follows: NO 3− N content ranged from 0.7 to 1.1 (mg/L) or greater than a threshold of seawater quality standards in Indonesia (0.008 mg/L), while NO 2− N content ranged from 0.4 to 0.7 (mg/L) (Marpaung, 2021;Marpaung et al, 2022), as an initial indicator of N enrichment.…”