[HN Gopher] Mangrove trees are on the move, taking the tropics w...
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Mangrove trees are on the move, taking the tropics with them
Author : alexahn
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-07-16 18:16 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Alligators and snakes probably to follow.
| nickserv wrote:
| Alligators were already found as far north as Virginia in the
| pre-industrial era.
| szundi wrote:
| We already have african mosqioes in Central East Europe. They
| attck whole day.
| sebastiennight wrote:
| I read "mosques" in my first reading of your comment and was
| tremendously confused for a minute.
|
| Anyway, if you're talking about _Aedes Aegypti_ , it's been
| causing various kinds of outbreaks in Europe since the 1800s.
| choeger wrote:
| 30 degrees north. That's about Kairo, for reference. I would not
| be surprised to see Mangroves at that latitude.
|
| It's probably more surprising that these areas aren't already
| subtropical. Climate change seems to reduce whatever factor
| caused the cooling there.
| nickserv wrote:
| Yes, I'm wondering if mangroves will start appearing in the
| Mediterranean any time soon.
|
| I'm assuming the seeds would need to come in through the
| Gibraltar straight, which is not exactly wide... Also the Med
| is saltier than the Atlantic, not sure if that would be a
| problem for mangroves.
| pcstl wrote:
| Mangroves are generally salt-tolerating and perfectly adapted
| to growing in brackish water.
| fsckboy wrote:
| Gibralter has a tremendous flow of water through it from the
| Atlantic. but the obstacle is that the circulation of the
| North Atlantic brings mostly water from the North to feed
| that flow. The Suez Canal is a sea level canal, though, and
| feeds water from Indian Ocean via the Red Sea. The flow of
| water there is directly from Africa but not that far south,
| but there are mangroves in East Africa and in South Asia so
| that's not a deal breaker. Also, there is the matter of ship
| bilges being emptied, though I've no idea the current status
| of that type of transport of flora and fauna.
|
| here's an article I found about dispersal of floating seeds.
| apparently there are some obstacles due to them sinking
| mumble mumble salinity:
|
| https://insideclimatenews.org/news/19072022/mangrove-
| seeds-o...
|
| _Most mangrove propagules don't travel far. They drop
| straight under their parent tree or get trapped in the
| tangled roots of the surrounding mangrove forest and take
| root a few feet or miles away. But long distance dispersal
| across oceans and seas is still important, said Van der
| Stocken. If mangroves need to expand their range because of
| unsuitable environmental conditions from climate change or
| weather events, as in Texas, being able to spread their
| genetic material long distances on ocean currents becomes
| important, he said._
|
| _Across the globe in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific
| mangrove populations, including those along the Gulf of
| Mexico, reduced water density was less apparent in the study
| models. However, the model found these regions might develop
| saltier water than the Western Pacific. Even if propagules
| travel the same distance, increased salinity might affect
| their survival, which will have implications for the
| dispersal dynamics of mangroves in those regions._
| dazuaz wrote:
| ltswus
| refulgentis wrote:
| > I would not be surprised to see Mangroves at that latitude.
|
| You should be! Per TFA: "60 miles north of its previously
| recorded range--by far the northernmost mangrove in the U.S"
|
| IMHO each observation of a new out-of-range specimen will be
| unsurprising without remembering the poetic lessons of
| infinitesimals, ex. Ship of Theseus, if not the prosaics of
| infinitesimals themselves.
|
| > It's probably more surprising that these areas aren't already
| subtropical.
|
| Given my surprise at this comment, I think I may be missing the
| significance in the switch from unsurprising there's a new
| record for US mangrove latitude to surprising it wasn't already
| subtropical. Is a mangrove a sufficient condition for being
| subtropical? Is it a necessary condition? My understanding is
| Florida is firmly subtropical on all the tentpoles: hot
| summers, mild winters, and rarity of frosts (famously, enabling
| its orange farming).
|
| > Climate change seems to reduce whatever factor caused the
| cooling there.
|
| Occam's Razor would say this adds an unneeded factor of a
| previously-unknown-to-humanity outlier cooled state, to further
| an irrational argument that it isn't surprising.
| pimlottc wrote:
| *Cairo, Egypt (thought maybe you meant someplace else for a
| moment)
| westurner wrote:
| Mangrove forest restoration > Mangrove loss and degradation:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove_restoration#Mangrove_...
| mkoubaa wrote:
| I've always wondered about the feasibility of using GMO mangroves
| or similar highly propagating or migrating species as a carbon
| sink
| tored wrote:
| Them branches go round and round this year.
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