Talk:Mangrove

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The list of mangrove envirionments in the main article does not include the Park is mangrove wetland, including nearly ALL of Florida Bay. This area, coupled with the Ten Thousand Islands Soutwest of Everglades City, FL comprise a critical nursery for numerous species, including shrimp & the lemon shark. Other mangrove communities in Florida are located in the lower keys, Along the Banana River near Titusville & the Kennedy Space Center, along the Indian River in Brevard & St. Lucie Counties, Lake Worth in Palm Beach county, The area immediately adjacent to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, along the Calusahatchee River in southwest Florida, Lemon & Sarasota Bays in southwest Florida, the Manatee river near Bradenton, Florida, & Tampa Bay area.


Identify the type of environment in which the mangrove is found?

You could read the article. - Marshman

Contents

[edit] Physics

I do not question that mangroves protect against tsunamis, I just don't quite understand. My imagination can't grasp precisely what happens as a mangrove protects against a tsunami. I just imagine the debris crawling up the road just the way cars and bits of buildings do. Would the additional debris make the wave move slower? I suppose it would absorb some of the energy, and the destruction of those trees would translate into less destruction elsewhere. Would salt marshes and wetlands do the same kind of thing against tsunamis as mangroves? Those, at the very least would be lining a bay instead of housing.

Or, I just thought, would the mangrove help trap the dirt that the tsunami would pull out to sea? I remember a lot of islands were eroded to the point of being more underwater than before on the news. Could mangroves prevent that?

Thanks a bunch

Also, should an explanation for how mangroves protect against tsunamis be put into the article?

I suppose the most important thing has to do with dissipating the energy of the tsunami. The trees are well-anchored, and they are somewhat flexible - so they would absorb a lot of energy before they broke. Stilt-rooted species have the equivalent of a series of guy-wires holding them down, rather than a single trunk - the point at which the fail mechanically is going to be much further along than a normal tree. By bending and absorbing the energy, they reduce the energy of the wave hitting the land. Guettarda 19:02, 8 December 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Naming ?

On the spanish wiki the tree is es:Mangle (interwikilinks was pointing to the laundry machine en:Mangle entry here so I'm fixing that) and the ecosystem formed by many Mangles are called Manglares (and interwiki for es:Manglar was en:Mangrove ). SO I'm confused. I've just traveled to a Manglar past week (took lots of pictures for improving articles) but before I'd like to settle the naming issue to check which one is right. I can confirm that at least in spanish, Mangle is the tree and Manglar the mangle forest. (The entry also mentions the word Mangal for the forest, but that's something I inferred, it's not explicit) -- ( drini's page ☎ ) 07:02, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I think you are correct: mangal is English for the ecosystem (= manglar), while mangle is latin (e.g., Rhizophora mangle, the American or red mangrove tree) for the plant (= mangrove). The confusion being that you have two different languages in your list of terms. In English, the term "mangrove" is used comnmonly for both the tree and the ecosystem (e.g., "mangrove forest") - Marshman 20:14, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] information about the role that plays the algae

I would like to know any information about the role that plays the algae in the mangrove lifecycle

[edit] Disagreement

I don't quite agree that the storm surge and hurricane protection offered by Mangroves are "very limited" because of this source which states otherwise:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial/nt/nt1406.html

I would also like to see something mentioned as to how the mangroves contribute to the formation of land. Rather than assuming the rivers just erode away and bend, moving the Mangroves location. Of how the presense of Mangrove can actually help to create new land, and even islands, in a process

- Gwaeraurond 21:01, 3 May 2006 (EST)

You won't find much evidence for real "formation of land" by mangroves. Certainly depends on the local conditions (inundation frequency, tidal amplitude, wave action), but there are some studies showing that mangroves appear rather opportunistically where the sediment conditions change in favour their presence, and that they disappear otherwise. The same can be said about the "protection" mangroves offer — well, if human settlements keep away from the water and stay behind undestroyed, large mangrove forest belts, they are less likely to be damaged by waves as could be seen during the tsunami in 2005. However, the mangroves themselves are susceptible to damage by storms. --Ulf Mehlig 2006-07-08 17:19 UTC

[edit] confusion

While the discussion here is all very interesting, the Wikipedia page for 'mangrove' is slightly less so, containing nothing but the statement "Shaelah is the coolest person ever!!!!!" and no edit button.

Being new to Wikipedia and its ways, I don't really know what's going on, but it's pretty clear that all this mangrove-discussion is in no way related to "Shaelah," whoever the hell that is. Shaelah (in vanity), or perhaps an admirer of Shaelah, has obviously sabotaged the mangrove article.

It would be really, really nice if we could get it back.

Sorry if this is in the wrong place.

-- Someone Just as Curious About Mangroves as the Next Person to Look it Up on Wikipedia.

[edit] too USA centric

need more info on other worldwide locations. ive started by adding some bits Anlace 23:28, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

There are tons of mangroves outside the USA. I hope much more info gets added! Pfly 05:12, 22 September 2006 (UTC)


Exactly, this article has a severe geographic bias, e.g inclusion of the genus Fimbristylis as a 'minor component' is a nonsense if mangrove vegetation is treated globally. A Fimbristylis species, for example, lives close, but not in mangrove vegetation in eastern Australia, along with other sedges. Inclusion of such 'saltmarsh' species would add many tens or hundreds of species.

[edit] Image:Mangrove.jpg

Image:Mangrove.jpg does most probably not show R. mangle as the author specifies that the picture was taken in Queensland/Australia. R. mangle does not naturally occur in Australia as far as I know. Ulf Mehlig, 2006-07-07 15:35 UTC

[edit] Crabs

Don't say "Mangrove crabs are important animals in the habitat." Say instead why they are important. Maybe something like "Mangrove crabs improve the nutritional quality of the mangle muds for other bottom feeders by mulching the mangrove leaves." (Skov & Hartnoll 2004). Bejnar 00:50, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Article deleted!

I discovered that the mangrove page was deleted just a few minutes ago, managed to salvage the contents through the google cached page. I am not familiar with how to format wiki using html. Please help! Thanks

Cached page from google: http://72.14.235.104/search?q=cache:V9LpUAAmY_QJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove+wikipedia+mangrove&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1

[edit] Australasia

Australasia is a term used to describe a region of Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Sulawesi (the eastern part of Indonesia) and the neighbouring islands in the Pacific Ocean. That is how it is used in this article. Do not change it back to Australia. The area being discussed is bigger than that. --Bejnar 07:16, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Contradiction between sections

The third paragraph of the 'General description' section states:

It is often stated that mangroves provide significant value in the coastal zone as a buffer against erosion, storm surge and tsunamis. While there is some attenuation of wave heights and energy as seawater passes through mangrove stands, it must be recognised that these trees typically inhabit areas of coastline where low wave energies are the norm. Therefore their capacity to ameliorate high energy events like storm surge and tsunamis is limited. Their long term impact on rates of erosion is also likely to be limited. Many river channels that wind through mangrove areas are actively eroding stands of mangroves on the outer sides of all the river bends, just as new stands of mangroves are appearing on the inner sides of these same bends where sediment is accreting.

The 'Mangrove ecosystems' subsection states:

Mangroves are excellent buffers between the violent ocean and the fragile coast, especially during hurricanes, which can bring powerful storm surges onto shores. The massive mangrove root system is quite efficient at dissipating wave energy. This same root system also helps prevent coastal erosion. As tidal water flows through the root system, it is slowed substantially enough so that it deposits its sediment as the tide comes in, and the return flow is kept slow as the tide goes out to prevent resuspension of some of the finer particles. As a result, mangroves can build their own environment. Because of the uniqueness of the mangrove ecosystems, they are frequently the object of conservation programs including national Biodiversity Action Plans.

Neither section cites any sources. So, are mangroves "excellent buffers", or they do they provide only "limited" protection against storms and erosion. As I have time I'll try to research this. However, another alternative is to remove both paragraphs if sources are not found. -- Donald Albury 13:37, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

  • Actually, to some extend they are both correct, but the second one is better. The statement "typically inhabit areas of coastline where low wave energies are the norm" is true but there it is the extraordinary waves like "powerful storm surges" that are protected against. Yes, there is fluvial erosion in the mangal, especially on the "outer sides of all the river bends", but this doesn't detract from their overall effectiveness in erosion control. I also will try to find appropriate sources to make this clearer. It sounds like the first paragraph was written by someone who had just come from a lecture where the lecturer was pointing out the exceptions to the generally stated case, and he/she missed the overarching point. --Bejnar 19:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I've requested citations. Actually, there are a number of places in this article that don't cite sources, but I've got enoug to keep track of without plastering this article. If I get a chance I'll search for suitable spurces, but that may be a while. -- Donald Albury 21:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)
I have provided citations. I was told that there is a good discussion of this in Wolanski, Eric. (2007) "Protective functions of coastal forests and trees against natural hazards" Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, Rome, but all I can find is an Abstract. Also there are studies that show that vegetated river banks erode 2 to 3 times slower than unvegetated ones, I will look for a summary article on that to remove the last citation requested in this section. --Bejnar 16:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Since I re-organized these two sections a little, the contradiction between the paragraphs became more obvious. I tried to reconcile the information into two coherent paragraphs. But that text has to be reviewed by someone who knows more about the subject, or at least check all the references. -Pgan002 08:35, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
And sometimes reliable sources contradict each other, and we have to leave it at that. -- Donald Albury 10:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Middle Beach, Australia

On 27 August 2007, in the "New Guinea and environs" section, an editor inserted "Middle Beach" in the middle of a sentence that was supported by the citation to "Mangrove ecosystems in Australia: structure, function and status". To the best of my knowledge, that citation does not support the insertion. Can anyone provide the page number in the 1995 State of the Marine Environment Report for Australia that discusses the Middle Beach mangroves? Or can someone provide other citation for their existence? I have temporarily deleted Middle Beach from the sentence pending citation. --Bejnar 18:58, 29 August 2007 (UTC)


[edit] What on earth is an "aboriginal footprint" when it's at home?

FTA:

Mangroves are also extremely important to the aboriginal "footprints" that are part of their cultural heritage. The mangroves of North Stradbroke are an excellent example of this phenomena, and this is obvious if you are to visit there. We as humans need the mangroves because, as a race, we depend on the numerous materials found there such as gold and other such lucrative minerals.

If anyone has the faintest idea what this is supposed to mean, please translate it into plain English. If nobody can shed any light on this paragraph, it should probably be removed. 81.86.133.45 12:45, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

That was a weird sentence in the article - removed now - Peripitus (Talk) 23:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Errors of fact and emphasis

Errors of fact and emphasis are rife in this article. It badly needs informed work. Gmelina (talk) 02:29, 25 May 2008 (UTC)