Biodiversity

Biography

Biography: Rajendran Narayanasamy

Abstract

Mangrove forest ecosystems are spectacular marine ecosystem, distributed in 124 countries and territories in the world with coverage of 15.2 million hectares. Of the total coverage, 39% exists in Southeast Asia. Approximately 48% mangroves are found in the Indonesia, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria and Mexico. The Sundarbans of India and Bangladesh put together is the largest single block of mangroves in the world, gifted with richer biodiversity of about 4000 species than any other mangrove forest ecosystems in the world. There are 73 plant species, found in the world mangrove forests, of which 39 plant species (65% of world mangrove species) are found, recorded in India. Mangroves are remarkable ecosystems providing essential goods and ecological services for the livelihood of coastal people. A growing threat to the mangrove biodiversity is climate change which deserves top priority for proactive management. Being most adaptable system, the mangroves do have genetically superior individual organisms which can overcome any climatic change especially sea level rise. The mangroves are much more vulnerable to sea level rise due to their location between land and sea. It is therefore, necessary to identify the mangrove genotypes and fauna which are tolerate to global warming and sea level rise, to propagate those genotypes and to create new hybrid species from those genotypes for coastal protection against the climate changes for the future.