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From seagrass to mangrove, and back |
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Written by Boldone
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Tuesday, 24 July 2007 |
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Fishes move from seagrass to mangrove and saltmarsh during high tides, taking advantage of the abundant zooplankton, to come back at low tides (Saintilan et al. 2007). Mangrove habitat with suitable water conditions are essential to the recovery and sustainability of goliath-grouper populations, usually inhabiting coral reefs (Koenig et al. 2007). Such findings confirm that mangroves are crucial to the existence of adjacent communities, as demonstrated by earlier studies on reef fishes (Mumby et al. 2004), and that tropical species are linked in complex ways.
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Written by Boldone
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Tuesday, 10 July 2007 |
Easy: mangroves are tropical plants that grow with their roots partly or totally submerged in sea water, capable of building tidal forests. But mangrove is also said of the forest itself, or of the whole community (Tomlinson 1986). What about the past? When do you recognize something that you can call a fossil mangrove community? The mangrove plants, as presently understood, are ascertained in the fossil record from their pollen grains, whereas fruits, leaves and wood can be hardly recognized in ancient peat deposits (Plaziat 1995).  Such fossils suggest that the modern ecosystem arose at the turn of the early Eocene, during the warmest times and the largest transgressions of the Cenozoic, a fact confirmed by the record of animal associates, notably the mollusks (Ellison et al. 1999). However, the strict actualistic approach applied to mangrove plants and animals should be considered trustworthy only at the species or genus level, what hinders the identification of older “mangrove” plants adapted to sea water and their ecosystems (Plaziat et al. 2001).
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Paleontological sites of the Pisa Province (Italy) |
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Written by Boldone
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Thursday, 05 July 2007 |
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Neogene deposits of Tuscany are noteworthy for several reasons. The first is that the succession is thick (up to 2000 m) and rather continuous, covering the Messinian-Pliestocene interval with mostly shallow water marine facies, but also with some outer shelf-bathyal sediments in the lower Pliocene and some transitional and terrestrial facies here and there.
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