Mangrove resilience to climate extreme events in a Colombian Caribbean Island

Abstract

Extreme events affect coastal vegetation in several ways. They cause massive tree defoliations and mortality that carry changes in vegetation structure and floristic composition. In order to assess these changes in dry tropical forests, coastal vegetation and mangroves in El Rosario archipelago, and their relationship with extreme events between 2002 and 2014, Quickbird and Worldview Satellite images with uneven periodicity were analyzed and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was calculated for these vegetation covers. Time series analysis was performed to oceanographic and climate variables such as maximum wind velocity, daily precipitation, significant wave height, peak wave period and maximum and minimum air temperatures. The first two axes of a redundancy analysis explained 65% of data variance (p value ≤ 0.05) and showed that the decrease of the NDVI and extension of beach vegetation were related to increases in wind frequency and intensity. However, mangrove vegetation was benefited by the increase in the frequency of short drought events, although their NDVI decreased when these drought events became longer. Drought events were related to El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) anomalies that had the strongest effects on coastal vegetation and dry forest, as shown by the minimum values of NDVI recorded in 2010. Mangrove vegetation was more resilient to such droughts and strong winds than coastal and dry forest vegetation due to their location along bays or surrounding internal lagoons.