Ecology in Mangrove

            
             Mangrove is vital for healthy coastal ecosystems (inter-tidal wetland ecosystem). It provides nutrients for the marine environment and supports immense varieties of sea life in giant food webs. Most mangroves live on muddy soils, where has absent or little wave action, but they also grow on sand, peat, and coral rock if tidal conditions are optimal, it lives in two worlds acting as the interface between land and sea. Mangroves help protect coastlines from erosion, storm damage, and wave action. The stability of the mangroves is very important. This is because they prevent shoreline erosion by acting as buffers, thus stabilizing land elevation by sediment accretion that balances sediment loss. Vital coral reefs and sea grass beds are also protected from damaging siltation. .
             Along the Hong Kong Deep Bay or some mud flats where has a low salinity, mangroves are usually been found. And there has several common species in Hong Kong, for example, Acanthus ilifolius, Kandelia candel etc. These species are usually located at the front of the mangrove area near the sea. Therefore when the tide comes, they are usually completely immersed and come out during the low tide. Beside those near the sea, there also has some near the land, for example, Excoecaria agallocha and Lumnitzera racemosa. They can be found at the landward side. Not only them, some small trees or shrubs can also be found near the land part of the mangrove.
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             And in this field trip, we went to the mangrove in Tseng Tau to study the ecology system there. We will have our study in three parts: First, the physical environment including slope etc. And the data collected in this part is used as the background information of our report. Second one is the plant study. The identification of each species and calculate their density in order to find out the relationship between their distribution and the environment (mangrove). And the last part is the animal study.