Co-existing mangrove-coral habitats have a new global classification system
15-JUN-2022
Peer-Reviewed Publication
SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE
At least 130 species of corals are known to live in the four identified habitat types where corals closely coexist with mangroves.
On any given day between 2016 and 2019, Heather Stewart could be found snorkeling in between mangroves in the Bocas del Toro archipelago along Panama’s Caribbean coast. For years she visited these forests at the interface between land and sea, trying to understand what drove corals to grow inside them. Corals and mangroves often grow near each other in tropical coastal environments, but finding them sharing the same habitat appeared to be an evolutionary trait that deserved an explanation.
The former doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and now Mangrove Restoration Postdoctoral Associate at the University of the Virgin Islands, explored 29 sites where mangroves and corals coexist in Bocas, and found that the corals fared best in large, flooded mangrove forests with high levels of seawater flow. Meanwhile, areas with large amounts of freshwater inflow or higher levels of human impact —land development and pollution— were unsuitable for corals.
Mangrove-coral associations are not unique to Bocas del Toro or the Caribbean. Although not extensively studied, corals live in mangroves in tropical oceans in other parts of the world, including the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and South Pacific. With this in mind, a group of researchers that included Stewart and other scientists from STRI, the University of Miami, Santa Fe College and the University of Florida set out to create a system to classify coexisting mangrove-coral (CMC) habitats around the world. They reviewed scientific studies and identified the main characteristics and conditions occurring in these ecosystems.
“We believe it is important to have a global classification system for coexisting mangrove-coral habitats because for nearly a century these systems have been known to exist, but were largely ignored by the scientific community,” said Stewart. “Now with all the threats corals face from ocean warming and acidification to pollution and sedimentation, corals are becoming more susceptible to diseases. Thus, there is greater interest in potential refugia to aid in the future of coral survival.”
More:
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/956131
