page_title: Mangrove
section_title: Biology
hierarchical_section_title: Mangrove / Biology
caption_attribution_description: Photo taken on the mangrove walk St Kilda, South Australia
context_page_description: A mangrove is a shrub or small tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves occur worldwide in the tropics and subtropics, mainly between latitudes 25° N and 25° S. The total mangrove forest area of the world in 2000 was 137,800 square kilometres, spanning 118 countries and territories.
  Mangroves are salt-tolerant trees, also called halophytes, and are adapted to life in harsh coastal conditions. They contain a complex salt filtration system and complex root system to cope with salt water immersion and wave action. They are adapted to the low oxygen conditions of waterlogged mud.
  The word is used in at least three senses: most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove forest biome, and mangrove swamp are also used, to refer to all trees and large shrubs in a mangrove swamp, and narrowly to refer just to "true" mangrove trees of the genus Rhizophora of the family Rhizophoraceae.
context_section_description: Of the recognized 110 mangrove species, only about 54 species in 20 genera from 16 families constitute the "true mangroves", species that occur almost exclusively in mangrove habitats. Demonstrating convergent evolution, many of these species found similar solutions to the tropical conditions of variable salinity, tidal range (inundation), anaerobic soils and intense sunlight. Plant biodiversity is generally low in a given mangrove. The greatest biodiversity occurs in the mangal of New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia.
caption: Salt crystals formed on Avicennia marina leaf
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