| Shrnutí: | The importance of mangrove systems as a source of income for coastal communities resides in their function as refuges and habitats for a great diversity of aquatic and terrestrial organisms. With the objective of developing a management plan for the Pampa-Murillo lagoon system, a model of the flow of matter inside and emanating from the mangrove was designed. The model was based on records of leaf litter production, herbivory, decomposition of fallen leaves and detritus movement towards the marine zone. Data was gathered from January to October in four types of mangrove forest where Rhizophora mangle, Laguncularia racemosa, Avicennia germinans and Conocarpus erectus species were present. In this system the daily production of leaf litter was 3,9 g/m2, equivalent to 7,9 t C/ha. The major leaf consumption by herbivores was in A. germinans with 13,6 %, followed of L. racemosa (12,5 %), R. mangle (9,8 %), being the lowest in C. erectus (5 ,7 %). The most resistant species to degradation was C. erectus which lost lower than 50 % of the initial organic matter content of its leaves over a period of 210 days. In contrast, A. germinans degraded most quickly retaining only 12,4 % of initial organic matter content after the same period. Of the organic matter produced by the forests, the mangrove system exports the least amount of detritus in May (0,5 t dry weigth/h), whereas detritus movement rises to 1,5 t/h (dry weight) in October. This represents the equivalent of approximately 4 822,2 t C/year, of which 54,5 % is organic matter. This material constitutes an important nutritional input into the adjacent marine zone.
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