Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees found in the coastal waters of the tropics and subtropics around the world. Mangrove forests play vital roles for both nature and society.
Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees found in the coastal waters of the tropics and subtropics around the world. Mangrove forests play vital roles for both nature and society. They help protect coastal communities as they provide a natural barrier from tsunamis and storms. In the other direction, they filter pollution and soil runoff. These forests also provide a marine nursery ground as the juveniles of coastal fish can easily hide between the trees. And they have an important role as a carbon sink, thus mitigating climate change. But today, around the world, mangroves are in decline. The forests are often removed to make way for farms and urban developments. To establish which of the remaining forests are the most important to protect, researchers from the Marine Biophysics Unit, led by Prof. Satoshi Mitarai, at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have conducted a study on how connected the mangroves are around the subtropical Ryukyu Islands in Japan.
“My research is motivated by conservation outcomes,” said PhD candidate Maki Thomas, first author of this paper, which was published in Frontiers in Marine Science. “It would be ideal if we could protect all the mangrove forests, but this isn’t realistic. Our goal is to find areas that should be prioritized for protection. For example, forests that are completely isolated and therefore won’t regenerate naturally if destroyed.”
This, she continued, will allow policy makers and environmental managers to identify important areas for conservation.
Read more at: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University
The species used in this study—Rhizophora stylosa—produces propagules that can survive at sea for several months. They have the potential to make the journey on the currents between Iriomote and Okinawa main island. (Photo Credit: OIST)
