Book review: A mangrove compendium

Abstract

ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update book review A mangrove compendium World atlas of mangroves, by Mark Spalding, Mami Kainuma and Lorna Collins (editors) 2010, Earthscan, 336 pp.ISBN: 9781844076574 Price: £65 (Hardback); http://www.earthscan.co.uk/ The World atlas of mangroves, an update to Spal‐ ding et al. (1997), is a must‐have publication for everyone loving and working with, in, or near to mangroves. It celebrates the wonderful world of these beautiful forests with astonishing figures and photographs. The informative maps and ta‐ bles provide captivating facts about the ecological and economic values of mangroves and the conse‐ quences of their loss. The atlas scores with the presentation of recent findings on carbon sequestration, showing that mangroves store more carbon than tropical forests (Donato et al. 2011); and with the suitabil‐ ity of intact mangroves for protecting coastal re‐ gions against tsunamis (Wibisono and Suryadipu‐ tra 2006). This will arm (with powerful arguments) ecologists, conservation biologists and policy‐ makers, who urgently need to communicate this knowledge in order to increase public awareness and political willingness to protect and rehabili‐ tate one of the most vulnerable ecological sys‐ tems on earth. As indicated by its title, the World atlas of mangroves gives a comprehensive overview of the global distribution of mangrove species at country level. A detailed description of the particular status of mangrove systems in each country, ac‐ companied by information about their specific threats, level of degradation and extent of reha‐ bilitation programs guides the reader through a multitude of distinct features, while keeping simi‐ larities and general principles in mind. Mangrove experts of international repute contribute boxes on particular topics of interest, such as mangroves’ responses to climate change (Gilman, Duke et al.) or their functioning in highly dynamic coastal regions (Fromard and Proisy). They summarise up‐to‐date research as well as the hot topics that will be developed in the near future. In addition, the annexes containing tree species descriptions, national species lists and country fact sheets serve as an excellent compen‐ dium and make this atlas perfect as a quickstart guide for students as well as experienced re‐ searchers approaching a new region. Considering the presentation of global trends as the main purpose of the World Atlas Of Mangroves, this book fulfils expectations. Unnec‐ essary uncertainties and errors in the introduction to the ecology of mangroves leave, however, a drop of bitterness. The first chapters (Mangrove ecosystems and Mangroves and people) notably omit explicit references to any publications. The authors state that these chapters and the boxes therein ‘draw heavily’ on the relevant literature, but information presented is confusing or even erroneous, and does not always reflect the con‐ tent of the publications loosely mentioned at the end of each subchapter, nor established knowl‐ edge available in textbooks (e.g. Tomlinson 1986) or extended reviews (e.g. Feller et al. 2010). For example, the classification of mangroves into fringing mangroves, basin mangroves, and over‐ wash mangroves is needlessly incomplete; it could be easily improved by following standard man‐ grove literature (e.g. Lugo & Snedaker 1974, Woodroffe 1992). The heterogeneous handling of outdated theories and debated hypotheses about the functioning of mangroves is also surprising. For instance, the editors correctly do away with the perspective that the land creates the capabil‐ ity for mangrove formation, but then present ele‐ vation and the subsequent gradient of inundation as the only factors driving patterns of species zonation. There are, however, four other major hypotheses to explain this striking feature: geo‐ morphological influences, propagule dispersal, predation and species competition (see e.g. Smith III 1992 for detailed discussion). Further errors in the classification of aerating roots and also in the systematics and geographical distribution of some mangrove species have been already listed and frontiers of biogeography 3.3, 2011 — © 2011 the authors; journal compilation © 2011 The International Biogeography Society