| Southern Africa mangroves | |
|---|---|
 red mangrove crab (Neosarmatium meinerti) at iSimangaliso Wetland Park, South Africa | |
 location of the Southern Africa mangroves (in blue) | |
| Ecology | |
| Realm | Afrotropical |
| Biome | Mangrove |
| Geography | |
| Area | 947 km2 (366 sq mi) |
| Countries | |
| Elevation | sea level |
| Conservation | |
| Protected | 229 km² (24%) [1] |
The Southern Africa mangroves are mangrove ecoregion on the Mozambique's southernmost coast and the eastern coast of South Africa.
These mangroves grow in the mouths of rivers on the Indian Ocean coast of South Africa, where the sea is warmed by the Agulhas Current, in many cases they are further sheltered from the ocean by sandbanks. The largest areas are in the estuaries of the Mhlathuze River and Lake St. Lucia. Mangroves extend as far south as the Nahoon River at 32°56′S., the most southerly occurrence of mangroves in Africa. [2] [3] [4]
Mangroves mostly grow in the estuaries of perennial rivers. There are approximately 1921 hectares of mangrove remaining on South Africa's coast. The largest mangrove areas are at Mhlathuze (652.1 ha), Lake St. Lucia (571 ha), Richards Bay (267 ha), Mngazana (118 ha), Mlalazi (60.7 ha), and Kosi Bay (60.7 ha), along with about a dozen smaller sites. [2]
The ecoregion is home to six mangrove species: Avicennia marina, Bruguiera gymnorhiza, Ceriops tagal, Lumnitzera racemosa, Rhizophora mucronata , and Xylocarpus granatum. [5] [2] Mudflats and shallows are dominated by species of Potamogeton, Ruppia , and Zostera . Beds of the seagrass Thalassodendron ciliatum are found in shallow waters. [6]
Mangrove diversity generally increases from south to north. In the Nahoon estuary (32°56′S), only Avicennia marina, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, and Rhizophora mucronata are present. At Kosi Bay on the South Africa–Mozambique border (27°S), six species are present – Avicennia marina, Bruguiera gymnorrhiza, Rhizophora mucronata, Ceriops tagal, Lumnitzera racemosa, and Xylocarpus granatum. [2]
The mangroves are an important habitat for sea life, birds and animals such as turtles and crocodiles. Sea life includes fiddler crabs, mud crab (Scylla serrata), mudskippers, (Periophthalmus kalolo) and many species of sea snails and sea slugs. Some marine fishes use the mangroves as mating and spawning grounds.
Resident species of birds include the endemic mangrove kingfisher (Halcyon senegaloides). The mangroves are a breeding area for at least 48 species of birds, including lesser flamingo (Phoeniconaias minor), great white pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus), pink-backed pelican (Pelecanus rufescens), grey-headed gull (Chroicocephalus cirrocephalus), Cape shoveler (Spatula smithii), yellow-billed duck (Anas undulata), pied avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta), saddle-billed stork (Ephippiorhychus senegalensis), yellow-billed stork (Mycteria ibis), and Caspian tern (Hydroprogne caspia). [6]
The mangroves are also visited by large numbers of migratory bird species.
Many areas of mangrove in southern Africa have been cleared for timber, urban and industrial development, including tourist facilities, and this is ongoing. Further damage to habitats is caused by pollution of rivers, while forest clearance inland causes rivers to bring down larger quantities of soils and the rivers and estuaries to be blocked.
About 24% of the ecoregion's area is protected (229 km2), and another 13% is relatively intact but unprotected. [1] Protected areas include Beachwood Mangroves Nature Reserve near Durban and iSimangaliso Wetland Park (formerly Greater St Lucia Wetland Park).
Marismas Nacionales–San Blas mangroves is a mangrove ecoregion of the Pacific coast of Mexico. The marismas nacionales stretches from Mazatlán, Sinaloa southwards to San Blas, Nayarit.
Coringa Wildlife Sanctuary is an estuary situated near Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh, India. It is the third largest stretch of mangrove forests in India with 24 mangrove tree species and more than 120 bird species. It is home to the critically endangered white-backed vulture and the long billed vulture. Mangroves are a group of trees and shrubs that live in the coastal intertidal zone, with a dense tangle of prop roots that make the trees appear to be standing on stilts above the water. This tangle of roots allows the trees to handle the daily rise and fall of tides; hence, the mangrove forest gets flooded at least twice per day. The roots also slow the movement of tidal waters, causing sediments to settle out of the water and build up the muddy bottom.
The Godavari-Krishna mangroves are a mangrove ecoregion of India's eastern coast.
The Pine River is a small river in South East Queensland, Australia.
Ao Phang Nga National Park is in Phang Nga Province in southern Thailand. It includes coastal sections of Mueang Phang Nga District and Takua Thung District. Most of the park consists of an area of the Strait of Malacca studded with numerous limestone tower karst islands. The best known of these islands is Khao Phing Kan, popularly called "James Bond Island" because it was used as a location for the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun.
The New Guinea mangroves is a mangrove ecoregion that covers extensive areas of the coastline New Guinea, the large island in the western Pacific Ocean north of Australia.
The Central African mangroves ecoregion consists of the largest area of mangrove swamp in Africa, located on the coasts of West Africa, mainly in Nigeria.
The Guinean mangroves are a coastal ecoregion of mangrove swamps in rivers and estuaries near the ocean of West Africa from Senegal to Sierra Leone.
Madagascar mangroves are a coastal ecoregion in the mangrove forest biome found on the west coast of Madagascar. They are included in the WWF's Global 200 list of most outstanding ecoregions.
The Ord River floodplain is the floodplain of the lower Ord River in the Shire of Wyndham-East Kimberley, in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. It lies within the Victoria Bonaparte IBRA bioregion and contains river, seasonal creek, tidal mudflat and floodplain wetlands, with extensive stands of mangroves, that support saltwater crocodiles and many waterbirds. It is recognised as an internationally important wetland area, with 1,384 square kilometres (534 sq mi) of it designated on 7 June 1990 as Ramsar Site 477 under the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands.
The Sunda Shelf mangroves ecoregion, in the mangrove biome, are on the coasts of the islands of Borneo and eastern Sumatra in Malaysia and Indonesia. They are home to the proboscis monkey.
The Ngezi Forest Reserve is a forest reserve located on Micheweni District of North Pemba Region on Pemba Island, Tanzania. It covers an area of 1,440 hectares, mostly comprising primary forest. The reserve was established in 1959.
Rhizophora mucronata is a species of mangrove found on coasts and river banks in East Africa and the Indo-Pacific region.
Parasesarma leptosoma, also known as the arboreal crab, is an arboreal, leaf-eating mangrove crab, from East and South Africa where it is found on Rhizophora mucronata and Bruguiera gymnorhiza, but not on Avicennia marina. It occupies an ecological niche similar to that of another sesarmid, Aratus pisonii, from the Americas.
The Manabí mangroves (NT1418) is an ecoregion along the Pacific coast of Ecuador. The mangroves serve important functions in the marine and terrestrial ecology. They have been severely degraded and fragmented, particularly in the northern region. Construction of shrimp farms caused much damage in the past, but is now banned. Sedimentation caused by overgrazing in higher lands is an issue, as are human activities such as port and highway construction, urbanization, waste disposal and so on.
The Abatan River is a river in western Bohol, Philippines. The river winds through the towns of Catigbian, Antequera, Balilihan, and Maribojoc to its mouth at Cortes.
The Tongan tropical moist forests is a tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests ecoregion that includes the Tonga archipelago and Niue.
The Moist Pacific Coast mangroves ecoregion covers a series of disconnected mangrove sites along the Pacific Ocean coast of Costa Rica and Panama. These sites occur mostly on coastal flatlands around lagoons, particularly where rivers from the inland mountains reach the sea, bringing fresh water to the coastal forests. The area is in a transition zone from the drier coastline to the north; rainfall in this ecoregions is over 2,000 mm/year, and reaches over 3,600 mm/year at the southern end.
The Southern Dry Pacific Coast mangroves ecoregion covers a series of mangrove forests along the Pacific Ocean coast of Nicaragua and Costa Rica, from the southern margin of the Gulf of Fonseca to the Gulf of Nicoya near the border with Panama. Because the area is drier than the mangroves further south, evapotranspiration leaves some areas with higher salinity and even salt pans in the internal areas.
The Trinidad mangroves ecoregion covers the separate mangrove forest areas on the coast of the island of Trinidad, in the country of Trinidad and Tobago. The character of the mangroves is affected by the large amount of fresh water flowing out of the Orinoco River and Amazon River to the south, which flow northwest around the island. The mangroves of Trinidad are found on all coasts, and are usually in the estuaries of rivers, but also found in coastal lagoons.
