Chemodynamics of nutrients and heavy metals in a tropical mangrove ecosystem

Abstract

Mangrove ecosystems are highly productive intertidal forest distributed newlinealong the tropical coast and they stabilize the coastal zone from erosion newlineand act as a buffer zone between land and sea. Mangroves are highly newlinedynamic ecosystem and their growth and decline often reflect the changing newlineconditions of the coastal environment. The mangrove ecosystem supports newlinegenetically diverse groups of aquatic and terrestrial organisms. These newlineecosystems also support marine fisheries and protect the coastal zone, thus newlinehelping the coastal environment and economy. The mangrove ecosystem is newlinegenerally regarded as sink for nutrients and dissolved minerals and a newlinesource of organic matter. The level of nutrients in the mangrove sediments newlineis largely influenced by microbial activities. The growth and productivity of newlinemangroves are strongly related to the benthic nutrient pools and nutrient newlinetransformations by the microbial decomposition of organic matter. The newlinemangrove sediment dynamics are largely regulated by both internal newline(flocculation, dissolution, mixing etc) and external (river input, agricultural newlinerunoff, pollution) factors. Mangrove ecosystems act as a site for organic newlinematter production and export large amounts of nutrients to the estuaries newlineand coastal ocean influencing the global biogeochemical cycles of newlineC, N, and P. The properties of mangrove communities vary within an newlineenvironmental setting depending on the location of mangroves along the newlinesalinity gradient of an estuary and with the distance inland from shore newlinealong the intertidal zone.Intertidal soils can be quite heterogeneous newlinebecause many edaphic characteristics depend on depositional and newlineerosional patterns and on the influence of plant communities, which add newlineorganic matter, cycle nutrients and modify soil salinity and redox newlineconditions. newline