Mangrove Science Network
Science Center Objects
The Mangrove Science Network is a collaboration of USGS scientists focused on working with natural resource managers to develop and conduct research whose findings will support and evaluate decisions made in mangrove management and restoration.
USGS research on mangrove ecosystem biology includes mangrove regeneration, tree growth, sedimentation, and early seedling development. We are also interested in learning about how mangrove vegetation responds to and influences environmental stressors along the coast such as sea level rise and its role in attenuating storm impacts.
A great white heron standing atop the mangrove roots of Boggy Key; a Florida Key island. (Credit: Heather Henkel, USGS. Public domain.)
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Date published: August 1, 2017Mapping Mangrove Condition
Mangroves have decreased worldwide due to human development, climate change and other forces. In southwest Florida, tremendous growth and development pressure has resulted in appreciable losses in mangrove wetlands.
Contacts: Elijah Ramsey, III, Ph.D., Amina Rangoonwala -
Date published: May 11, 2016Status: ActiveRate and Process of Mangrove Forest Expansion on Carbon Relations in Coastal Louisiana
Field observations over recent decades have confirmed mangrove expansion landward in tropical zones and poleward in temperate saltmarsh settings around the northern Gulf of Mexico.
Contacts: Thomas Doyle, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 18, 2016Mangroves vs. Salt Marshes: Mangrove Forest Range Expansion at the Expense of Salt Marshes
Winter climate change has the potential to have a large impact on coastal wetlands in the southeastern United States.
Contacts: Michael Johannes Osland, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 17, 2016Mangrove Migration Network
At the poleward marsh-mangrove ecotone, mangrove abundance and coverage is winter temperature-sensitive in that it oscillates in response to the frequency, duration, and/or intensity of extreme winter temperatures. Future winter climate change is expected to facilitate poleward mangrove range expansion at the expense of salt marshes in Texas, Louisiana, and parts of Florida.
Contacts: Michael Johannes Osland, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 17, 2016Macroclimatic Controls of Coastal Wetland Ecosystem Structure and Function
At the global-scale, macroclimatic drivers govern ecosystem structure and function in tidal saline wetlands (e.g., salt marshes, mangrove forests, salt flats). However, global reviews and models for these ecosystems typically do not directly include climatic drivers. The objective of this research is to examine and forecast the effects of macroclimatic drivers on wetland ecosystem structure...
Contacts: Michael Johannes Osland, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 16, 2016Status: ActiveClimate Change Effects on Coastal Marsh Foundation Species
Mangrove forests have migrated inland over the past few decades at many locations along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast. This expansion has been attributed to factors associated with climate change, such as increased salinity resulting from sea-level rise and longer intervals between winter freezes, which can kill cold-intolerant mangrove species.
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Date published: April 15, 2016Status: ActiveEcosystem Development After Wetland Restoration and Creation
Wetland restoration and creation efforts are increasingly proposed as means to compensate for wetland losses. To address the need for evaluating the development of ecosystem structure and function in restored and created wetlands, USGS compared created tidal wetlands sites to natural mangrove wetlands in Tampa Bay, Florida.
Contacts: Michael Johannes Osland, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 8, 2016Status: ActiveEvaluating Structural and Surface Elevation Recovery of Restored Mangroves
Hydrologic restoration is one of several approaches to rehabilitate mangroves on a large-scale. USGS evaluates how solely restoring tidal hydrologic flows affect the recovery of mangroves in Florida.
Contacts: Ken Krauss, Ph.D., Amanda Demopoulos, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 8, 2016Status: ActiveDynamics and Fluxes of Nutrients along Environmental Gradients in the Florida Everglades, USA
USGS research in the Florida Everglades will provide information on how environmental conditions and disturbances impact carbon storage in mangrove systems.
Contacts: Gregg Snedden, Ph.D. -
Date published: April 7, 2016Status: ActivePlant Community Dynamics in a Mangrove-to-Marsh Transition Zone
Mangroves will compete with salt marsh plants in transitional areas, and recent studies have documented the expansion of mangroves into marsh habitats. To better understand the plant community dynamics in this transition zone, USGS scientists are tracking vegeation changes over time in south Florida.
Contacts: Rebecca J Howard, Ph.D.
Ecological resilience indicators for mangrove ecosystems
Mangrove ecosystems are coastal wetland ecosystems dominated by mangrove species that are typically found in the intertidal zone, characterized by frequently flooded saline soil conditions. The majority of the approximately 500,000 acres of mangrove ecosystem in the United States occurs in the NGoM, and almost all of that is in Florida, with over...
Day, Richard H.; Allen, Scott T.; Brenner, Jorge; Goodin, Kathleen; Faber-Langendoen, Don; Ames, Katherine Wirt Early growth interactions between a mangrove and an herbaceous salt marsh species are not affected by elevated CO2 or drought
Increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations are likely to influence future distributions of plants and plant community structure in many regions of the world through effects on photosynthetic rates. In recent decades the encroachment of woody mangrove species into herbaceous marshes has been documented along the U.S. northern Gulf...
Howard, Rebecca J.; Stagg, Camille L.; Utomo, Herry S. Microspatial ecotone dynamics at a shifting range limit: plant–soil variation across salt marsh–mangrove interfaces
Ecotone dynamics and shifting range limits can be used to advance our understanding of the ecological implications of future range expansions in response to climate change. In the northern Gulf of Mexico, the salt marsh–mangrove ecotone is an area where range limits and ecotone dynamics can be studied in tandem as recent decreases in winter...
Yando, Erik S.; Osland, Michael J.; Hester, Mark H. Conservation and restoration of mangroves: Global status, perspectives, and prognosis
Mangrove forests provide critical services around the globe to both human populations and the ecosystems they occupy. However, losses of mangrove habitat of more than 50% have been recorded in some parts of the world, and these losses are largely attributable to human activities. The importance of mangroves and the threats to their persistence...
Romañach, Stephanie; DeAngelis, Donald L.; Koh, Hock Lye; Li, Yuhong; Teh, Su Yean; Barizan, Raja Sulaiman Raja; Zhai, Lu Will fluctuations in salt marsh–mangrove dominance alter vulnerability of a subtropical wetland to sea‐level rise?
To avoid submergence during sea-level rise, coastal wetlands build soil surfaces vertically through accumulation of inorganic sediment and organic matter. At climatic boundaries where mangroves are expanding and replacing salt marsh, wetland capacity to respond to sea-level rise may change. To compare how well mangroves and salt marshes...
McKee, Karen L.; Vervaeke, William Advancing mangrove macroecology
Mangrove forests provide a wide range of ecosystem services to society, yet they are among the most anthropogenically impacted coastal ecosystems in the world. In this chapter, we discuss and provide examples for how macroecology can advance our understanding of mangrove ecosystems. Macroecology is broadly defined as a discipline that uses...
Rivera-Monroy, Victor H.; Lee, Shing Yip; Kristensen, Erik; Twilley, Robert R.; Rivera-Monroy, Victor H.; Osland, Michael J.; Day, John W.; Ray, Santanu; Rovai, Andre S.; Day, Richard H.; Mukherjee, Joyita Mangrove ecosystems under climate change
This chapter assesses the response of mangrove ecosystems to possible outcomes of climate change, with regard to the following categories: (i) distribution, diversity, and community composition, (ii) physiology of flora and fauna, (iii) water budget, (iv) productivity and remineralization, (v) carbon storage in biomass and sediments, and (vi) the...
Jennerjahn, T.C.; Gilman, E.; Krauss, Ken W.; Lacerda, L.D.; Nordhaus, I.; Wolanski, E. Linear and nonlinear effects of temperature and precipitation on ecosystem properties in tidal saline wetlands
Climate greatly influences the structure and functioning of tidal saline wetland ecosystems. However, there is a need to better quantify the effects of climatic drivers on ecosystem properties, particularly near climate-sensitive ecological transition zones. Here, we used climate- and literature-derived ecological data from tidal saline wetlands...
Feher, Laura C.; Osland, Michael J.; Griffith, Kereen T.; Grace, James B.; Howard, Rebecca J.; Stagg, Camille L.; Enwright, Nicholas M.; Krauss, Ken W.; Gabler, Christopher A.; Day, Richard H.; Rogers, Kerrylee Assessing coastal wetland vulnerability to sea-level rise along the northern Gulf of Mexico coast: Gaps and opportunities for developing a coordinated regional sampling network
Coastal wetland responses to sea-level rise are greatly influenced by biogeomorphic processes that affect wetland surface elevation. Small changes in elevation relative to sea level can lead to comparatively large changes in ecosystem structure, function, and stability. The surface elevation table-marker horizon (SET-MH) approach is being used...
Osland, Michael J.; Griffith, Kereen T.; Larriviere, Jack C.; Feher, Laura C.; Cahoon, Donald R.; Enwright, Nicholas M.; Oster, David A.; Tirpak, John M.; Woodrey, Mark S.; Collini, Renee C.; Baustian, Joseph J.; Breithaupt, Joshua L.; Cherry, Julia A; Conrad, Jeremy R.; Cormier, Nicole; Coronado-Molina, Carlos A.; Donoghue, Joseph F.; Graham, Sean A.; Harper, Jennifer W.; Hester, Mark W.; Howard, Rebecca J.; Krauss, Ken W.; Kroes, Daniel; Lane, Robert R.; McKee, Karen L.; Mendelssohn, Irving A.; Middleton, Beth A.; Moon, Jena A.; Piazza, Sarai; Rankin, Nicole M.; Sklar, Fred H.; Steyer, Gregory D.; Swanson, Kathleen M.; Swarzenski, Christopher M.; Vervaeke, William; Willis, Jonathan M; Van Wilson, K. The state of the world’s mangroves in the 21st century under climate change
Concerted mangrove research and rehabilitation efforts over the last several decades have prompted a better understanding of the important ecosystem attributes worthy of protection and a better conservation ethic toward mangrove wetlands globally. While mangroves continue to be degraded and lost in specific regions, conservation initiatives,...
Feller, Ilka C.; Friess, Daniel A.; Krauss, Ken W.; Lewis, Roy R. Gulf Coast vulnerability assessment: Mangrove, tidal emergent marsh, barrier islands and oyster reef
Climate, sea level rise, and urbanization are undergoing unprecedented levels of combined change and are expected to have large effects on natural resources—particularly along the Gulf of Mexico coastline (Gulf Coast). Management decisions to address these effects (i.e., adaptation) require an understanding of the relative vulnerability of various...
Watson, Amanda; Reece, Joshua; Tirpak, Blair; Edwards, Cynthia Kallio; Geselbracht, Laura; Woodrey, Mark; LaPeyre, Megan K.; Dalyander, Patricia (Soupy) Mangrove species' responses to winter air temperature extremes in China
The global distribution and diversity of mangrove forests is greatly influenced by the frequency and intensity of winter air temperature extremes. However, our understanding of how different mangrove species respond to winter temperature extremes has been lacking because extreme freezing and chilling events are, by definition, relatively uncommon...
Chen, Luzhen; Wang, Wenqing; Li, Qingshun Q.; Zhang, Yihui; Yang, Shengchang; Osland, Michael J.; Huang, Jinliang; Peng, Congjiao-
Date published: September 9, 2010Mangrove Secrets
The Sheltered Corals of Hurricane Hole, US Virgin Islands
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Date published: May 24, 2018Better Together: How Ecosystem Services and Adaptive Decision-Making Can Improve Land Management
An ecosystem services approach combined with adaptive decision-making can aid land and resource managers in administering their regions for the benefit of communities and stakeholders, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey and Resources for the Future
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Date published: January 25, 2017Changes in Rainfall, Temperature Expected to Transform Coastal Wetlands This Century
Changes in rainfall and temperature are predicted to transform wetlands in the Gulf of Mexico and around the world within the century, a new study from the USGS and the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley concludes.
Attribution: Land Resources, Ecosystems, Climate Adaptation Science Centers, States and Territories, Region 6: Arkansas-Rio Grande-Texas-Gulf, Region 2: South Atlantic-Gulf (Includes Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands), Region 4: Mississippi Basin, South Central Climate Adaptation Science Center, Wetland and Aquatic Research Center -
Date published: October 3, 2016Rising Sea Levels, Coastal Development’s Effect on Gulf Coast Wetlands
As coastal development along the Gulf Coast continues to expand, tidal saline wetlands could have difficulty adjusting to rising sea levels.
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Date published: August 11, 2016Ecosystems in the Southeastern U.S. Are Vulnerable to Climate Change
“From the mountains to the coast, the southeastern U.S. contains ecosystems that harbor incredible biodiversity. Many of those ecosystems are already highly at risk from urbanization and other human land-use change. Identifying the ecosystems at risk from climate change will help inform conservation and management to ensure we don’t lose that biodiversity.” (Jennifer Constanza, report author)