Neotropical mangrove communities: A review

Abstract

Mangrove communities ("mangal, " sensu Tomlinson, P. B. The botany of mangroves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986) are ecosystems that develop in salt marshes, on fluvial mudflats, and along tropical coasts in several parts of the world. Plants that constitute these communities are well adapted to saline conditions and tolerate tidal ranges, two factors that largely determine their floristic composition. In this chapter we focus exclusively on American mangrove communities and analyze in detail all the phytocoenoses described using phytosociological methodologies. Only a few plant species are characteristic of American mangrove communities; nonetheless, up to 33 mangrove plant associations embracing 5 orders, 9 alliances, and 3 phytosociological classes have been published, mostly from the Caribbean. This review provides clear evidence of the existence of homonyms between associations and superior syntaxonomic ranks and of how plant species that are not typical of these ecosystems but of the plant communities that border on mangroves are used as characteristic taxa to propose novel phytocoenoses.