Mangroves On The March - 30 Years Since Last Effective Freeze, Trees Heading North Along FL Coasts
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Ranges of mangroves have naturally waxed and waned over the years, influenced by the weather, but with climate change has come a crucial reduction in crop- and tree-killing freeze events. The last freeze strong enough to wipe out mangroves took place in 1989. This decline in the number of frosts, coupled with intensifying storms spreading seed-like propagules, is causing the trees to push poleward.
Smithsonian Environmental Research Center research shows mangrove coverage has doubled along Northeast Florida’s coast since 1984. This freshly arrived abundance of mangroves may block waterfront views and squeeze out marsh wildlife, but the tropical trees’ value is celebrated by the state.
Florida legislators regard the trees as storm buffers and coastal habitat, and the Mangrove Preservation and Trimming Act safeguards mangroves and forbids their trimming by anyone lacking arborist certification. More than 500 violations have been issued since the legislation passed in 1995, with some businesses and residents hit with fines of tens of thousands of dollars each. On average, researchers have estimated mangroves protect $13 billion worth of property in the U.S. annually from storm and flood damage.
The range expansion also carries implications for global climate change. As the trees have spread along the Atlantic coast, new research in the journal Hydrobiologia shows blue carbon, or carbon captured in coastal ecosystems, in the soil beneath them increased by two-thirds over three years — slowing climate change by keeping carbon out of the atmosphere.
“They’re protectors of the coast,” said Smithsonian insect and plant ecologist Ilka “Candy” Feller, as she strode through the Guana Tolomato Matanzas Research Reserve in St. Augustine, one of the sites where she worked on the analysis with colleagues. Dubbed “Mangrove Goddess” by her peers, Feller has been studying the plants for decades. “Belowground there has been this constant accumulation of carbon, and now this blue carbon is considered one of the most valuable assets of mangroves.”
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https://www.climatecentral.org/news/protectors-of-the-coast-northward-march-of-mangroves-fishing-flooding-and-carbon