The Caribbean Mangroves Today

Extant mangroves cover a total of approximately 14,700 km2 along Caribbean coasts, which represent ~10% of the total world’s mangrove extent. The main components, in terms of fidelity, physiology, structure, and abundance (also known as major true mangrove elements of mangrove-forming trees), are Rhizophora (Rhizophoraceae), Avicennia (Acanthaceae), and Laguncularia (Combretaceae). Other minor true-mangrove elements are Pelliciera (Tetrameristaceae) and Acrostichum (Pteridaceae), which occupy marginal mangrove environments. A third category of ~20 mangrove associates are not restricted to mangrove communities and lack morphological and physiological adaptations to grow in saline waters. Relevant examples are the herb Crenea (Lythraceae) and the tree Conocarpus (Combretaceae). Biogeographically, the Caribbean mangroves are within the Atlantic-East Pacific (AEP) region, having a significantly poorer mangrove flora than the Indo-West Pacific (IWP) region, both separated by the continental African barrier. Caribbean mangroves typically develop sea–land zonation along salinity gradients governed by topography and tidal influence. The most common pattern, from sea to land, is Rhizophora-(Pelliciera)-Avicennia-Laguncularia-Conocarpus. Pollen and spores (sporomorphs) from true and associate mangrove elements are the most used evidence to reconstruct the ecological, biogeographical, and evolutionary trends of these communities. This book gathers the available sporomorph records (156 localities) in a dataset called CARMA (CARibbean MAngroves) as the basis for the following discussions.