Mangroves, Hurricanes, and Lightning Strikes

Smith, Thomas J.; Robblee, Michael B.; Wanless, Harold R.; Doyle, Thomas W.

doi:10.2307/1312230

Cited by 287 publications

(215 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…Although some studies found that susceptibility to hurricane damage varies with species and size of mangrove (Baldwin et al 1995, Imbert et al 1996, McCoy et al 1996, Sherman et al 2001, Vogt et al 2011, others found similar levels of damage among mangrove species and among size classes within species (Odum et al 1982, Gresham et al 1991, Smith et al 1994, Sherman et al 2001. Because mangrove forests are often characterized by low floristic diversity, several studies have predicted that the recovery trajectory is relatively simple such that biological diversity, forest structure, ecosystem processes, and ecological functions will completely regain their former states following hurricane disturbance (Lugo et al 1976, Ogden 1992, Smith et al 1994. Although mangrove species diversity is low in the Atlantic-Caribbean region, the physiognomy of mangrove forest types is diverse, ranging from scrub stands ,1.5 m tall to .30 m tall in riverine systems as a function of hydrogeomorphology (RiveraMonroy et al 2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nutrient enrichment intensifies hurricane impact in scrub mangrove ecosystems in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA

Feller

Dangremond

Devlin

et al. 2015

Ecology

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Abstract. Mangroves are an ecological assemblage of trees and shrubs adapted to grow in intertidal environments along tropical, subtropical, and warm temperate coasts. Despite repeated demonstrations of their ecologic and economic value, multiple stressors including nutrient over-enrichment threaten these and other coastal wetlands globally. These ecosystems will be further stressed if tropical storm intensity and frequency increase in response to global climate changes. These stressors will likely interact, but the outcome of that interaction is uncertain. Here, we examined potential interaction between nutrient over-enrichment and the September 2004 hurricanes. Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne made landfall along Florida's Indian River Lagoon and caused extensive damage to a long-term fertilization experiment in a mangrove forest, which previously revealed that productivity was nitrogen (N) limited across the forest and, in particular, that N enrichment dramatically increased growth rates and aboveground biomass of stunted Avicennia germinans trees in the interior scrub zone. During the hurricanes, these trees experienced significant defoliation with three to four times greater reduction in leaf area index (LAI) than control trees. Over the long term, the þN scrub trees took four years to recover compared to two years for controls. In the adjacent fringe and transition zones, LAI was reduced by .70%, but with no differences based on zone or fertilization treatment. Despite continued delayed mortality for at least five years after the storms, LAI in the fringe and transition returned to pre-hurricane conditions in two years. Thus, nutrient over-enrichment of the coastal zone will increase the productivity of scrub mangroves, which dominate much of the mangrove landscape in Florida and the Caribbean; however, that benefit is offset by a decrease in their resistance and resilience to hurricane damage that has the potential to destabilize the system.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nutrient enrichment intensifies hurricane impact in scrub mangrove ecosystems in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida, USA

Feller

Dangremond

Devlin

et al. 2015

Ecology

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“…This irony is most likely related to severe disturbance from Hurricane Wilma, which caused massive mortality of mangrove trees at site SRM . As documented by previous studies, killing of the tall Rhizophora trees in the canopy trees lowered the population and flowering rate of Rhizophora and provided opportunities for heliophytic herbaceous plants to colonize (Smith et al, 1994Baldwin et al, 1995Baldwin et al, , 2001Vegas-Vilarrúbia and Rull, 2002;Piou et al, 2006;Hogarth, 2007;Thaxton et al, 2007). A distinct increase in Poaceae in the pollen diagram may represent early successional vegetation communities due to gap creation (Zhang et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Changes in Modern Pollen Assemblages and Soil Geochemistry along Coastal Environmental Gradients in the Everglades of South Florida

Yao

Liu

2018

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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This study aims to document the changes in modern pollen assemblages and soil elemental chemistry along broad edaphic, hydrological, and salinity gradients, including a previously undocumented secondary environmental gradient, in a vast mangrove-dominated wetland region in the Everglades, South Florida. Twenty-five soil surface samples were collected along an interior wetland transect and an estuarine mangrove transect across coastal zones in the Everglades National Park and subjected to palynological and XRF analyses. Modern pollen spectra from the sampling sites were classified into five a priori groups-wet prairie, pineland, inland mangroves, coastal mangroves, and fringe mangroves, based on the five vegetation types and sub-environments from which they were collected. Discriminant analysis shows that all (100%) of the samples are correctly classified into their a priori groups. On a broad scale, the modern pollen assemblages in surface samples collected from different vegetation types reflect the primary environmental gradient in the Florida Coastal Everglades. A distinct salinity and chemical gradient is also recorded in the XRF results, and the complexity of these gradients is captured at both regional and local scales. At the regional scale, concentrations of all the elements increase from terrestrial toward coastal sites. At the local scale, XRF results show a progressive decrease in most chemical concentrations and in the Cl/Br and Ca/Ti ratios away from the Shark River Slough at each individual site, suggesting that a secondary fluvial/tidal gradient also exists locally as a function of the distance from the river, the main carrier of these chemicals. This study provides new evidence to show that tidal flooding from the Shark River Estuary is directly related to the nutrient availability in the surrounding mangrove forests. These data will deepen our understanding of the environmental drivers behind the vegetation zonation in the region, especially in the mangrove ecosystems, and fill a gap in the pollen data network for the Everglades.

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“…Mangrove forests can be damaged by wood-boring beetles (xylovores), which may cause death of individual trees or small groups of trees (Lugo and Patterson-Zucca 1977;Feller 1995;Smith et al 1994). Such biotic agents of disturbance were unrecognized until Feller (1995) reported that up to 30 % of the canopy in a red mangrove forest in Belize was removed by the activities of wood-boring beetles.…”

Section: Herbivorymentioning

confidence: 99%