- What is allometry? “In many organisms, the growth rate of one part of the organism is proportional to that of another. This is the basic theory of allometric relationships, and therefore, the trunk diameter of a tree is, for example, highly correlated with trunk weight”(129).
- Healthy mangroves support high above and below ground biomass (131).
- “The highest above-ground biomass, 460 t ha-1, was found in a forest dominated by R. apiculata in Malaysia (Putz and Chan, 1986 )” (131).
- “The lowest aboveground biomass reported was 7.9 t ha-1 for a Rhizophora mangle forest in Florida, USA (Lugo and Snedaker, 1974)”(131).
- “…in low latitudes, primary or mature mangrove forests generally have high above-ground biomass. The above-ground biomass is always low in temperate areas and may be related to different climatic conditions, such as temperature, solar radiation, precipitation, and frequency of storms”(131).
- Mangroves provide important habitat to other micro and macro organisms (134-135).
- Productivity trends in mangroves is reported: “…the above-ground NPP”-net primary productivity-“of mangrove forests tends to be high compared to tropical upland forests, at least in the range of H < 10 m. The high NPP of mangrove forests may be partly due to their high litter production rates”(135).
- Low soil respiration seen in mangrove forests suggests that mangroves are good at sequestering carbon dioxide (135).
- In terms of net ecosystem productivity (NEP), the review of two studies, Komiyama (2006) and Pregitzer and Euskirchen (2004), showed that NEP increases with age of a mangrove stand. An increased NEP in mangrove ecosystems may attribute to better carbon sequestering (136).
- To summarize, mangroves are good for carbon sequestering because they have large biomass, a generally high net primary productivity, and low soil respirations.