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The use of fresh and saline water sources by the mangrove Avicennia marina

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Abstract

Mangroves are distributed along tropical and subtropical riverine and coastal shores. Although mangroves are highly adapted to saline environments, maintaining water uptake under saline conditions is energetically expensive. Therefore, salinity is a limiting factor for mangrove growth and productivity, and access to fresh water sources, such as rainwater and groundwater, which reduce water salinity, increase mangrove ecosystem productivity. Here, we investigated the extent of fresh water utilization by mangroves to better predict current and future mangrove productivity. We used the abundance of 18O isotope in stem water to assess: (1) the extent of fresh water utilization by Avicennia marina (Forssk.) Vierh across hydrological settings; and (2) whether growth, measured as increments in stem circumference, is sensitive to variation in rainfall availability. The δ18O isotopic composition of stem water indicated mangroves use both fresh and saline water sources for metabolic processes. However, our results suggest that the proportion of fresh water used by mangroves increases with the availability of fresh water. Growth of the main stems of trees was correlated with rainfall (r 2 = 0.34 and r 2 = 0.37, P = 0.001). Our results indicate that access to fresh water is important for mangrove productivity because it enhances their growth rates.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the National Council for Science and Technology (Mexico), the Secretary of Public Education (Mexico), the Australian Research Councils (ARC) National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (Australia), partial support from ARC project DP1096749. We also thank The School of Biological Sciences and The School of Civil Engineering at the University of Queensland (Australia) for financial support. We thank Dr. Tim R. Mercer for editorial assistance and Vicki Bennion, Mitchell Zischke, Dr. Mothei Lenkopane, Dr. Adrien Guyot, Dr. Alistair Grinham and Dr. Lili Wei for fieldwork assistance. We also thank the Associate Editor and two anonymous Reviewers for their comments and suggestions, which helped to improve this manuscript.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    Nadia S. Santini, Ruth Reef & Catherine E. Lovelock

  2. The National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA, 5001, Australia

    Nadia S. Santini, David A. Lockington & Catherine E. Lovelock

  3. The School of Civil Engineering, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD, 4072, Australia

    David A. Lockington

Authors
  1. Nadia S. Santini
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  2. Ruth Reef
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  3. David A. Lockington
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  4. Catherine E. Lovelock
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Correspondence to Nadia S. Santini.

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Handling editor: K.W. Krauss

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10750_2014_2091_MOESM1_ESM.tiff

Relationship between δ18O and salinity of water sources for three study regions. The lines are lines of best fit for each study region. Between study region the slopes of the regression lines were significantly different (p < 0.05). For Moreton Bay, the regression is: δ18O = 0.14 Salinity – 4.37 (r 2 = 0.88, ***p < 0.0001, n = 13). For the Noosa River the regression is: δ18O = 0.05 Salinity – 1.72 (r 2 = 0.65, p = 0.008, n = 13). For the Exmouth Gulf the regression is: δ18O = 0.82 Salinity – 8.15 (r 2 = 0.20, p < 0.0001, n = 12). Different symbols represent different water sources, rainwater (circles); pore-water (triangles); seawater (squares); groundwater (upside down triangles). (TIFF 209 kb)

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Santini, N.S., Reef, R., Lockington, D.A. et al. The use of fresh and saline water sources by the mangrove Avicennia marina . Hydrobiologia 745, 59–68 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-014-2091-2

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