| Summary: | Considering the challenge that the economic, social and ecological systems face -in order to know and mitigate the global climatechange-, evidences of the functional structure of mangroves ecological system are presented revisiting the hypothesis presented byYáñez-Arancibia et al. (1998), and revised latter by Yáñez-Arancibia et al. (2010): “the mangroves as a critical forest habitat of thecoastal zone present accommodation responses to the environmental variability that induces global change playing an structural andfunctional role in the stability of the coastline, the persistence of habitats and biodiversity, the metabolism of the ecosystem, reducingrisks and uncertainty for the sustainable development of the use of its resources”. Recent evidences indicates that mangroves in the Gulfof Mexico follows this hypothesis and –as answer to climate change and its effects in the coastal zone- shows a consistent pattern ofgeographical distribution colonizing all over the northern coast of the Gulf, including the Atlantic coast of Florida Peninsula because ofthe opportunity of “global tropicalization of the Gulf of Mexico”. Moreover, at present the four mangrove species in the Gulf of Méxicoare distributed in the Texas state U.S. We conclude that mangrove ecosystem is a “sentinel-ecosystem” in front of climate change impactin the Gulf of Mexico.
|
|---|
