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Animals of the Disappearing Mangroves

In the watery limbo between sea and river, where salt and fresh water mingle in the roots of mangrove trees, a handful of uniquely adapted species—terrestrial and aquatic—have evolved to fill the novel niche.

But more than 40 percent of the land-dwelling animals that live in mangrove forests are now under pressure from habitat loss, concludes an analysis published this week in BioScience.

"Mangroves are threatened by development, pollution, mariculture and changes in sea level and salinity," wrote David Luther, an ecology researcher at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Russell Greenberg, head of the Smithsonian National Zoo's Migratory Bird Center. [more]