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Published with ISME, ITTO and project partners FAO, UNESCO-MAB, UNEP-WCMC and UNU-INWEH This atlas provides the first truly global assessment of the state of the world's mangroves. Written by a leading expert on mangroves with support from the top international researchers and conservation organizations, this full colour atlas contains 60 full-page maps, hundreds of photographs and illustrations and a comprehensive country-by-country assessment of mangroves. Mangroves are considered both ecologically and from a human perspective. Initial chapters provide a global view, with information on distribution, biogeography, productivity and wider ecology, as well as on human uses, economic values, threats, and approaches for mangrove management. These themes are revisited throughout the regional chapters, where the maps provide a spatial context or starting point for further exploration. The book also presents a wealth of statistics on biodiversity, habitat area, loss and economic value which provide a unique record of mangroves against which future threats and changes can be evaluated. Case-studies, written by regional experts provide insights into regional mangrove issues, including primary and potential productivity, biodiversity, and information on present and traditional uses and values and sustainable management.

This book contains a wealth of research combined with almost fifty years of field experience to present this comprehensive review of resident and migratory avian species in the coastal mangrove forests of the Indian-Bangladesh Sundarbans and hinterland. The book gives a general account of the diversity and distribution of resident and migratory avian species with special emphasis on their ecology in a changing climate. It provides a detailed reference source, covering mangroves' spatial heterogeneity and bird diversity; impact of mangroves and non-mangrove vegetation on the birds including provision for food, shelter and reproduction; role of birds in the food web; relationships among bird communities; and impacts on the habitats of the birds. The study of the 580 species in the region shows those better able to adapt to changing environments, and those more sensitive to climate change. Species that are relatively short-lived but reproduce very easily, are able to adapt and respond quickly to changes. Threatened species may be able to recover if governments, wildlife officials, non-government conservationists and other stakeholders can act quickly to support them.

Aims Mangrove ecosystems play an important role in mitigating climate change with their capacity to sequester and store carbon. Mangrove can store larger amount of carbon in their soil than any other tropical forests in the same latitude. The coastline is a highly dynamic environment, mangroves can develop at the mudflat with stands of different ages paralleling the shoreline. Hence, this study aimed to assess the role of mangrove growth on ecosystem carbon stock. Methods Four sites, including natural mangrove stands with different ages (15, 45 and 80-yr-old) and mudflat were selected. Vegetation biomass and the soil carbon content from 0 to 100 cm were analyzed. Results Ecosystem carbon stocks (including biomass carbon stocks and 0–100 cm soil organic carbon stocks) of 15-yr-old, 45-yr-old and 80-yr-old stands are 171.57 t ha −1 , 274.53 t ha −1 and 380.72 t ha −1 ,respectively, and are 1.76, 2.82 and 3.91 times higher, than that of the bare mudflat ecosystem (111.23 t ha −1 ). Moreover, the vegetation carbon stocks in 15-yr-old, 45-yr-old and 80-yr-old forest stands account for 33.78%, 17.74%, and 12.33% of the ecosystem carbon density, respectively. The annual accumulation rates of the ecosystem carbon stocks are 3.61 t ha −1 , 3.43 t ha −1 and 2.78 t ha −1 for 15-yr-old, 45-yr-old and 80-yr-old stands, respectively. Conclusions The mangrove stand characteristics and its soil properties were changed with the mangrove ages. The contribution of vegetation biomass carbon stock to ecosystem carbon stock increased along the chronology, while the soil showed the opposite pattern. The annual accumulation rate of ecosystem carbon stocks decreased along the chronology.

Forecasting productivity and stress across an ecosystem is complicated by the multiple interactions between competing species, the unknown levels of intra- and interspecific trait plasticity, and the dependencies between those traits within individuals. Integrating these features into a trait-based quantitative framework requires a conceptual and quantitative synthesis of how multiple species and their functional traits interact and respond to changing environments, a challenge known in community ecology as the \"fourth-corner problem.\" We propose such a novel synthesis, implemented as an integrated Bayesian hierarchical model. This allows us to (1) simultaneously model trait–trait and trait–environment relationships by explicitly accounting for both intra- and interspecific trait variabilities in a single analysis using all available data types, (2) quantify the strength of the trait–environment relationships, (3) identify trade-offs between multiple traits in multiple species, and (4) faithfully propagate our modeling uncertainties when making species-specific and community-wide trait predictions, reducing false confidence in our spatial prediction results. We apply this integrated approach to the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, a sentinel ecosystem impacted simultaneously by both climate change and multiple types of human exploitation. The Sundarbans presents extensive variability in environmental variables, such as salinity and siltation, driven by changing seawater levels from the south and freshwater damming from the north. We find that tree species growing under stress have a typical functional response to the environmental drivers with inter-specific variability around this average, and the amount of variability is further contingent upon the nature and magnitude of the environmental drivers. Our model captures the retreat in traits related to resource acquisition and a plastic enhancement of traits related to resource conservation, both clear indications of stress. We predict that, if historical increases in salinity and siltation are maintained, one-third of whole-ecosystem productivity will be lost by 2050. Our integrated modeling approach bridges community and ecosystem ecology through simultaneously modeling trait–environment correlations and trait–trait tradeoffs at organismal, community, and ecosystem levels; provides a generalizable foundation for powerful modeling of trait-environment linkages under changing environments to predict their consequences on ecosystem functioning and services; and is readily applicable across the Earth's ecosystems.

China has lost about 50% of its mangrove forests from 1950 to 2001. Since 2001, mangrove forest area has increased by 1.8% per year due to strict protection of the remaining mangrove forests and large-scale restoration. By 2019, 67% of the mangrove forests in China had been enclosed within protected areas (PAs). In terms of the proportion of PAs of mangrove forests, China has achieved the conservation target of “Nature Needs Half”. The ongoing degradation of mangrove forests was assessed at the species, population, community and ecosystem levels. The results show that despite the strict protection, the remaining mangrove forests are suffering extensive degradation due to widespread anthropogenic disturbance. Of the 26 mangrove species, 50% are threatened with extinction, a proportion higher than the average for all higher plants in China (10.8%). Local extinction of some common species like Bruguiera gymnorhiza is widespread. About 53% of the existing mangrove areas were dominated by low-intertidal pioneer species. Consequently, the carbon stock in vegetation has decreased by 53.1%, from 21.8 Tg C in the 1950s to 10.2 Tg C in 2019. Meanwhile, there is an estimated 10.8% concomitant decrease in the carbon sequestration rate. The root cause for this degradation in China is seawall construction because most mangroves are outside seawalls in China. Without fundamental changes in protection and restoration strategies, mangrove forests in China will continue to degrade in spite of strict protection and large-scale restoration. Future mangrove conservation effort should aim to preserve the diversity of both the biota and the ecological processes sustaining the mangrove ecosystem. A few suggestions to raise the effectiveness of mangrove conservation actions were provided.

Mangrove forests are among the world’s most productive and carbon-rich ecosystems. Despite growing understanding of factors controlling mangrove forest soil carbon stocks, there is a need to advance understanding of the speed of peat development beneath maturing mangrove forests, especially in created and restored mangrove forests that are intended to compensate for ecosystem functions lost during mangrove forest conversion to other land uses. To better quantify the rate of soil organic matter development beneath created, maturing mangrove forests, we measured ecosystem changes across a 25-yr chronosequence.We compared ecosystem properties in created, maturing mangrove forests to adjacent natural mangrove forests.We also quantified site-specific changes that occurred between 2010 and 2016. Soil organic matter accumulated rapidly beneath maturing mangrove forests as sandy soils transitioned to organic-rich soils (peat). Within 25 yr, a 20-cm deep peat layer developed. The time required for created mangrove forests to reach equivalency with natural mangrove forests was estimated as (1) <15 yr for herbaceous and juvenile vegetation, (2) ~55 yr for adult trees, (3) ~25 yr for the upper soil layer (0–10 cm), and (4) ~45–80 yr for the lower soil layer (10–30 cm). For soil elevation change, the created mangrove forests were equivalent to or surpassed natural mangrove forests within the first 5 yr. A comparison to chronosequence studies from other ecosystems indicates that the rate of soil organic matter accumulation beneath maturing mangrove forests may be among the fastest globally. In most peatland ecosystems, soil organic matter formation occurs slowly (over centuries, millennia); however, these results show that mangrove peat formation can occur within decades. Peat development, primarily due to subsurface root accumulation, enables mangrove forests to sequester carbon, adjust their elevation relative to sea level, and adapt to changing conditions at the dynamic land–ocean interface. In the face of climate change and rising sea levels, coastal managers are increasingly concerned with the longevity and functionality of coastal restoration efforts. Our results advance understanding of the pace of ecosystem development in created, maturing mangrove forests, which can improve predictions of mangrove forest responses to global change and ecosystem restoration.

This manuscript presents a new global database that tracks annual global mangrove forest change rates since 2000. By synthesizing several remotely sensed databases such as Mangrove Forests of the World, Global Mangrove Watch, and High-Resolution Global Maps of 21st-Century Mangrove Forest Cover Change, this database provides mangrove forest change information at approximately 30 m annually and globally. It is a consistent and systematic mangrove forest change database across all years. Between 2000 and 2020, mangrove forests lost 3.42% of their original global area, shrinking from approximately 139,716 km2 in 2000 to 134,383 km2 in 2020, resulting in an annual loss rate of 0.17%. As of 2020, Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Nigeria, and Malaysia are the top five mangrove-holding countries, containing slightly over 50% of the global mangrove holdings. Indonesia alone contains 22% of global mangrove forests.

The ecological effects of tropical cyclones on mangrove forests are diverse and highly location- and cyclone-dependent. Ecological resistance, resilience, and enhancement are terms that describe most mangrove forest responses to tropical cyclones. However, in the most extreme cases, tropical cyclones can trigger abrupt and irreversible ecological transformations (i.e., ecological regime shifts). Here, we examine a cyclone-induced ecological regime shift that occurred in Everglades National Park (USA), where forest mortality and peat collapse due to a powerful tropical cyclone (the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane) led to the conversion of mangrove forests to mudflats and an estimated elevation loss of approximately 75 cm. We investigated soil elevation change measured in these mangrove forests and adjacent mudflats during a twenty-year period [1998–2018] using Surface Elevation Table-Marker Horizon (SET-MH) methods. This period encompasses the effects of Hurricanes Wilma (2005) and Irma (2017). We also used historical sea-level rise rates and future sea-level rise scenarios to estimate surface elevation changes in the past (1930–1998) and to illustrate elevation gains needed for these ecosystems to adapt to future change. Collectively, our findings advance understanding of the long-term effects of cyclone-induced ecological regime shifts due to forest mortality, peat collapse, and conversion of mangrove forests to mudflats.