Anthropogenic Disturbance of Caribbean Mangrove Ecosystems: Past Impacts, PresentTrends, and Future Predictions

摘要

The authors review historical, current, and projected future impacts of fourclasses of anthropogenic distrubance--extraction, pollution, reclamation, and changing climate--on Caribbean mangrove ecosystems (mangal). These distrubances occur, respectively, at increasing spatial and temporal scales, and require increasing recovery time. Small-scale selective extraction has little system-wide effect, but regeneration is slow even on single hectare clear-cuts due to a rapid soil acidification. Petroleum is the primary pollutant of Caribbean mangal, and results in tree defoliation, stand death, and loss of associated sessile and mobile animal species. Mangal has been reclaimed for urbanization, industrialization, and increasingly, for tourism. The region's fisheries are declining at a similar rate, as most commercial shellfish and finfish use mangal for nurseries and/or refuge.