Carolyn and I went to the east coast of Florida to visit with mangrove ecologist Dr. Candy Feller from the Smithsonian. Our goals were to explore the marsh-mangrove ecotone on the Florida coast, compare it to the ecotone on the Texas coast, and brainstorm proposal ideas. It was a rainy day, but Carolyn and I trekked out into the marsh at the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve near St Augustine, FL, to look for the northernmost black mangroves (Avicennia germinans), and we found them! There were just a few scattered dwarf mangroves in a sea of Spartina alterniflora and Batis maritima.
The transition from a marsh-dominated to a mangrove-dominated coastline happened quickly - 16 miles south, the black mangroves were substantially denser. Image from the Vilano boat ramp, St Augustine, FL.
And then, about 50 miles south, near Fort Pierce, FL, the mangrove assemblage was much more robust - denser, taller, and more diverse. The marsh vegetation was also much taller!
One unusual sight was these "albino" red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) propagules. The yellow color indicates a loss of chlorophyll, possibly due to exposure to oil or other pollutants. Not all trees seemed equally susceptible, since not all neighboring trees had albino propagules.
Did you think that prop roots occurred only in red mangroves? And that white mangroves (Laguncularia racemosa) occurred only at higher, drier elevations? That's what conventional Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico mangrove knowledge says, but nope. This is a picture of Laguncularia with prop roots growing in an continuously inundated pond. Image from Merritt Island, Florida.
A neat sight that doesn't really have anything to do with mangroves: a pair of great horned owls near Fort Matanzas National Monument.
No comments:
Post a Comment