Mangroves are one of the most efficient and effective natural tools for mitigating and adapting to global change in tropical and subtropical coasts. These ecosystems are one of the most productive in the world and exhibit a high capacity for carbon storage due to the waterlogged and anoxic soils, which can lock away carbon for millennia. As such, mangroves play a key role in the global cycling of carbon, alongside nutrient and trace metal exchange, by regulating their transfer at the land-ocean interface. They also contribute to maintaining fisheries and the livelihoods of indigenous populations in many countries that depend on mangrove goods and services. It is crucial, then, to protect and conserve these ecosystems.
Yet, this narrow stretch of the world’s coastline comprises one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, due to impacts from a range of human activities, while also being one of the most sensitive ecosystems to climatic change. Impacts from land use changes, primarily aquaculture, and urbanization, including forest conversion and the loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and their biogeochemical properties observed worldwide, are exacerbated by increasing sea levels and the frequency of extreme weather events driven by global climate change. These major threats to mangroves are only set to increase in the future.
This Research Topic is focused on the environmental impacts on, and mangrove response to, land use change in the context of wider global change. Particularly, but not exclusively, we welcome papers on the effects of aquaculture, including the alteration of nutrient fluxes, mangrove ecology and biogeochemistry, where global change have affected the mangrove response. Studies dealing with the alteration of mangrove areas and species distribution due to climate change driven erosion, sedimentation, and physical chemical properties, particularly those dealing with the carbon cycling, emission and accumulation, are also welcome. In addition, studies on the outcomes of restoration and improved capacities of mangroves to mitigate pressures from global change are welcome. We expect contributions dealing with threats to mangroves and solutions furnished by these coastal forests to mitigate current environmental problems, whilst taking into consideration the global change scenario of the Anthropocene.
Mangroves are one of the most efficient and effective natural tools for mitigating and adapting to global change in tropical and subtropical coasts. These ecosystems are one of the most productive in the world and exhibit a high capacity for carbon storage due to the waterlogged and anoxic soils, which can lock away carbon for millennia. As such, mangroves play a key role in the global cycling of carbon, alongside nutrient and trace metal exchange, by regulating their transfer at the land-ocean interface. They also contribute to maintaining fisheries and the livelihoods of indigenous populations in many countries that depend on mangrove goods and services. It is crucial, then, to protect and conserve these ecosystems.
Yet, this narrow stretch of the world’s coastline comprises one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, due to impacts from a range of human activities, while also being one of the most sensitive ecosystems to climatic change. Impacts from land use changes, primarily aquaculture, and urbanization, including forest conversion and the loss of biodiversity, ecosystems and their biogeochemical properties observed worldwide, are exacerbated by increasing sea levels and the frequency of extreme weather events driven by global climate change. These major threats to mangroves are only set to increase in the future.
This Research Topic is focused on the environmental impacts on, and mangrove response to, land use change in the context of wider global change. Particularly, but not exclusively, we welcome papers on the effects of aquaculture, including the alteration of nutrient fluxes, mangrove ecology and biogeochemistry, where global change have affected the mangrove response. Studies dealing with the alteration of mangrove areas and species distribution due to climate change driven erosion, sedimentation, and physical chemical properties, particularly those dealing with the carbon cycling, emission and accumulation, are also welcome. In addition, studies on the outcomes of restoration and improved capacities of mangroves to mitigate pressures from global change are welcome. We expect contributions dealing with threats to mangroves and solutions furnished by these coastal forests to mitigate current environmental problems, whilst taking into consideration the global change scenario of the Anthropocene.
