A study led by the Centro de Ciências do Mar do Algarve (CCMAR), which includes an international team of researchers, reveals that, in addition to climate change and human impacts, ocean currents also play a key role in regulating the genetic diversity of forests of mangroves on a global scale, with implications for their conservation.
Mangrove forests are distributed along tropical and subtropical coastal regions. Despite offering several ecological and socioeconomic benefits, such as carbon sequestration, coastal protection, and habitat for important commercial species, mangroves are threatened by factors such as climate change, deforestation and pollution.
«It is urgent to manage and conserve mangrove forests on a global scale and, for that, it is necessary to understand the factors that determine the distribution of their diversity», stresses CCMAR in a press release.
In this study led by CCMAR and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers developed global-scale biophysical models that allowed estimating the extent to which mangrove populations are interconnected or isolated by patterns of ocean currents.
These estimates, when compared with information on the genetic diversity of thousands of populations, of dozens of mangrove species, led to the conclusion that the direction and intensity of ocean currents are determinant for the diversity of mangrove forests.
“The results we obtained show that ocean currents play a fundamental role in the genetic diversity of mangroves, allowing or interrupting the genetic flow between populations”, explains Lidiane Gouvêa, CCMAR researcher and first author of the study.
“Our study has implications for the conservation and management of mangroves in a context of climate change, as potential changes in the direction and intensity of ocean currents can lead to isolation of populations and prevent them from exchanging genes. Over time, this isolation could lead to a decrease in the genetic diversity of populations, increasing the risk of their extinction, which has direct implications for communities in tropical countries that depend directly on mangrove forests.” said Jorge Assis, CCMAR researcher and senior author of the study.
This study provides important insights into the role of ocean currents in mangrove biodiversity and underscores the urgent need to protect these ecosystems and the species that inhabit and depend on them.
The study can be consulted by clicking here.
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