Sunday, August 30, 2009

Red and Black Mangroves (VIDEO)

South Florida is home the 2nd largest mangrove forest in the world. The largest is in Indonesia and typical of mangrove forests the diversity of trees is low. The forest is often dominated by Red, Black or White Mangroves and in the following short video I explain the difference between the reds and the blacks.

All mangroves grow in a salty or brackish water and each has a unique adaptation to survive there. Red Mangroves are capable of blocking salt water from entering their roots, while
Black Mangroves excrete salt trough their leaves. Below you can see the salt crystals on the leaf.
Below are leaves from the four main species found in a mangrove forest. From left to right - Black Mangrove, Red Mangrove, White Mangrove and Buttonwood.
Mangroves grow from Tampa on Florida's west coast around the pennisula and north to Jacksonville. Well....rumor has it they have one mangrove tree up there. We'll count it. But the majority of the mangroves cap the bottom of the Everglades and makes up what is known as the 10,000 Islands National Wildlife Refuge - a vast wilderness made up of well over 15,000 small mangrove tree islands. Can you blame someone for stopping their count at 10,000? I've simply outlined the area below.


View Mangrove Forest in a larger map

Videography and editing by Patricio Garcia and Jose Espaillet

3 comments:

  1. You've certainly got a suitable Crocodile Hunter hat, but I didn't hear a single "Crikey" in the whole video... ;)

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  2. My catch phrase is "it squirted on me"

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  3. We used to use buttonwood to smoke mullet with until it become illegal to cut.

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