What is the Importance of Mangrove to our Ecosystem? Mangroves is the term basically referring to trees planted for several purposes, providing a wide range of importance to us and mostly found in brackish waters.
Mainly to understand the importance of mangrove to our ecosystem, we need to understand what an ecosystem really is.
An Ecosystem: Consist of all the organisms and all the physical environment with which they interact.
It is made up of the biotic and abiotic components which are the living and non living conditions/parematers and components found in an habitat.
Major Importance of Mangroves to the Ecosystem
Mangrove serves as a naturally stationed infrastructure to protect nearby populated areas by reducing erosions and absorbing storm surge impact during extreme weather conditions.
For instance: Hurricanes, tsunamis etc. Mangroves acts as light windbreakers and still give benefits to the soil on which they occupy such as binding of the soil and building nutrients and making them readily available for the soil organisms to survive on.
The above-ground roots of mangrove slow down water speed and encourage sedimemts deposits that inturn helps in reducing coastal erosion.
Mangrove forest trap a good amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and stores them in their carbon rich soils for years to come.
This is very important with our current struggle with climate change. This buried carbon overtime on the ground is known as blue carbon or carbon sinks because it is stored underwater in coastal environments like the mangrove forest, sea grass beds and salt marshes.
More complex Mangrove root aystems filter nitrates, phosphates and other pollutants from water, thereby improving the water quality flowing from rivers and streams into the estuarine and ocean environment.
Mangroves also serves as a habitat for a variety of wild life such as birds , invertebrates, mammals and plants.
It provides nesting and migratory grounds to hundreds of species of birds which flourish where it is found.
In the estuarine habitat the immediate top roots of the mangrove plants serve as a settling ground for juvenile marine species such as the crabs, shrimps and in some areas red mangrove roots are ideal for oysters which attach to portions of the roots hanging into the water.
In some lifetime, studies show that endangered species such as the small tooth sawfish, key deer, hawksbill seaturtle, and the florida panther depends on this Mangrove habitat for sufficient survival.
For humans – the mangrove forest serves as refreshing e n.v environment enabling relaxation and tourism to persons who wish to enjoy the calm that comes with being surrounded by nature.
Mangroves back can be used in the tanning of animal skins to make leather, soaps , cosmetics , perfumes as well as insecticide.
They also provide economic benefits for communities in which they are found such as nursery for commercial fish stocks.
Overtime an importance of Mangrove to our ecosystem include the availability of wood that can be cut down and used as building materials, cooking materials, fish racks and traps or furniture constructions of basic home needs like doors, tables chairs , frames mortars and more.
Mangrove help to form a commendable buffer zone shielding the soil from direct impact of sunlight and soil nutrients deficiency thereby ensuring availability of nutrients in ths soil over a period of time while saving some living organisms from extinction.
Types of Mangroves
They are basically three types of mangrove, they are:
- The Red Mangrove (The Rhizophora mangle.
- The White Mangrove (Laguncularia racemosa)
- The Black Mangrove (Avicennia germinans)
Each of these type of mangrove grows abundantly in the salty water along the florida shorelines. Though they are over 50 species of Mangrove in the world.
All types of mangrove trees can filter out the salt from the surrounding seawater when it enters their root system.
Worthy of note is that – mangrove are being cultivated by individuals either as a community service programme or as a recreation.
Planting of mangrove is a major activity used in land reclamation and shoreline restorations.As part of its buffering effect mangrove provides several homes around it with cold shades.
Conclusion
The importance of Mangrove to our ecosystem cannot be overemphasized, it has proven overtime to be a compelling force in providing humans and other living organisms with clean green energy and environment for our better survival.