Effect of Temperature and Precipitation on Global Mangrove &lt;i&gt;Rhizophora&lt;/i&gt; Species Distribution

Aroloye O. Numbere,Gerardo R. Camilo

doi:10.3844/ajessp.2017.342.350

Abstract

Climate change influences the distribution of mangroves towards tropical or temperate regions of the world. We hypothesized that Rhizophora species organized along complex spatial and temporal temperature and precipitation gradient. To determine the affinity of different mangroves with climatic parameters, the response of eight Rhizophora species to seven climatic parameters (i.e., annual mean temperature, annual precipitation, maximum temperature of warmest month, minimum temperature of coldest month, temperature annual range and temperature of driest month and precipitation of warmest month) was analyzed with Arc GIS and Maxent software. For temperature and precipitation there was significant difference (p<0.001) among species location. Only R. selala (p<0.001) differed most from the rest taxa in temperature. The jackknife test in Maxent revealed that minimum temperature of coldest month (regularized training gain ~0.71), temperature annual range, (regularized training gain ~0.66) and annual mean temperature (regularized training gain ~0.36) were the most important environmental parameters that determine the occurrence of R. mangle, being the most dominant species. This outcome was further validated by an accuracy of 91%. This implies thattemperature was a better predictive parameter than precipitation in the distribution of R. mangle.

Highlights

Mangroves occupy more than 150, 000 km2, occur in over 123 countries and contain more than 73 species and/or hybrids (Bunt, 1992; Spalding, 1997; Spalding et al, 2010)
The present study examines the key climatic parameters determining the global distribution pattern of Rhizophora species
Rhizophora species that occur in the wettest areas are R. racemosa, R. × apiculata and R. × harrisonii

Summary

Introduction

Mangroves occupy more than 150, 000 km, occur in over 123 countries and contain more than 73 species and/or hybrids (Bunt, 1992; Spalding, 1997; Spalding et al, 2010). Mangroves are divided into the Indo-West Pacific (IWP) and the Atlantic East Pacific (AEP) groups (Duke, 1990; Macnae, 1968). They originated from a warm environment (Plaziat et al, 2001) and their distribution is influenced by meteorological events (Alongi, 2008) such as temperature (Duke, 1992) and precipitation (Saenger and Snedaker, 1993). These climatic parameters influence influence their habitat specificity (Feller et al, 2010).

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