Mangrove Forests

Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in saline coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. The trees can tolerate the saline conditions caused by brackish water and through pure seawater (30 to 40 ppt), to water of over twice the salinity of ocean seawater, where the salt has become concentrated by evaporation (up to 90 ppt). There are many species of trees and shrubs adapted to such saline conditions. Not all are closely related, and the term "mangrove" may be used for all of them, or more narrowly only for the mangrove family of plants, the Rhizophoraceae, or even more specifically just for mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora.

Mangroves form a characteristic of saline woodland or shrubland habitat, called mangrove swamp, mangrove forest, mangrove or mangal. Mangals are found in depositional coastal environments where fine sediments (often with high organic content) collect in areas protected from high energy wave action. They occur both in estuaries and along open coastlines. Mangroves dominate about three quarters of tropical coastlines.