Abstract
Los manglares son abundantes e importantes ecosistemas marino-costeros en Costa Rica pero están siendo afectados por la actividad humana. Se analizó la estructura y cobertura de ambos manglares presentes en Bahía Culebra (Panamá e Iguanita), Guanacaste, Pacífico norte de Costa Rica. Se utilizó el PCQM para estructura durante la época seca entre diciembre 2007 y marzo 2008. Se utilizaron dos imágenes MASTER CARTA 2005 georreferenciadas para mapeo. El área aproximada de bosque de manglar en Panamá fue de 13.7ha; y de 40.8ha en Iguanita. Panamá contiene 51% de manglar denso en el área de estudio, 35% bosque seco, 2% sin vegetación y 12% de arena o agua. En Iguanita el 84% del área corresponde a manglar denso, 5% manglar de baja densidad y 10% sin cobertura vegetal o era arena o agua. Se hallaron cinco especies de manglar en Panamá (<em>Avicennia germinans, Avicennia bicolor, Conocarpus erectus, Laguncularia racemosa y Rhizophora mangle</em>); y tres en Iguanita (<em>A. germinans, L. racemosa y R. mangle</em>). En general, la presencia de las especies de manglar siguió un patrón similar en ambos manglares. La densidad total fue menor que en manglares cercanos; y Panamá (8.4tallos/0.1ha) mucho menor que Iguanita (67.2tallos/0.1 ha). El Índice de Complejidad (IC) fue mucho mayor en Iguanita (IC= 86.5), con dominancia de R. mangle, que en Panamá (IC= 1.1), con dominancia marcada de A. germinans. Estructuralmente ambos manglares son muy distintos entre sí y parecen encontrarse en contextos hidrodinámicos diferentes.
Highlights
Mangrove forests in the Eastern Pacific extend from the Gulf of California to the northern coast of Peru
Previous mangrove research in the north Pacific of Costa Rica has focused mainly on the mangrove stands of Puerto Soley and Santa Rosa, located further North along the coast, with three studies at each site (Zamora-Trejos & Cortés 2009)
The Panamá stand had only been considered in a study related to a species of crab (Ucides occidentalis), where forest structure information was limited to mentioning the presence of three mangrove genera (Cabrera-Peña et al 1994)
Summary
Study sites: Panamá and Iguanita mangrove stands are located in Bahía Culebra (Culebra Bay), North Pacific coast of Costa Rica, within the Área de Conservación Tempisque and Área de Conservación Guanacaste, respectively (SINAC 2010) This region is characterized by a marked dry season in December-April, and wet season May-November. Georeferenced images were digitized to 1:5000 scale using the following categories: a) Dense mangrove, which included only mangrove tree species and evident high canopy cover; b) Low density mangrove, mostly areas with dry soil and scarce mangrove trees ( dwarf Avicennia trees); c) Transition to dry forest, with both mangrove and dry forest species; d) No mangrove, specific areas within the stands without vegetation; e) Sand; and f) Water This classification was made based on field and image observations. Field data and coordinates were used to develop a GIS database to plot species distribution
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