Modeling mangrove establishment with ocean wave energy as a central limiting mechanism to seedling survival

Abstract

Mangrove forests hold incredible value in their support of biodiversity, food supply, and ecosystem services such as shoreline protection, but they have faced intense deforestation in the last century and continue to be absent from historical sites. To aid in their conservation and future implementation as protection from storm surge and sea level rise, it is critical that we gain a better understanding of the mechanisms driving the success or failure of seedling establishment. This study identifies wave action as a primary barrier to successful seedling establishment, characterizes the critical wave energy under which seedlings are successful, and develops a spatially-explicit model which predicts seedling density at a site given environmental characteristics. This model was fit with field data from Bocas del Toro, Panama, and 6 of 11 predictions exhibited moderate to high agreement with real data. Additionally, a critical threshold of 2.9 cm was identified as the significant wave height at which the highest seedling densities are observed. This work has tangible relevance to the field of mangrove conservation and restoration by providing a critical energy for seedling survival and a model with the ability to predict the success of seedling establishment at conservation sites.