One of the most productive and bio-diverse wetlands areas in the world is the mangrove swamp. These unique coastal tropical forests are also the habitats that are most threatened in the world. They are disappearing faster than inland tropical forests and are doing so without much notice from the public.
Mangrove swamps are ecosystems that are found along muddy coastlines like river mouths, lagoons, deltas and bays, which are sheltered from the open seas. A quarter of the tropical beaches of the world are mangrove swamps. They roughly cover 15.5 million hectares worldwide. They are found in 112 countries worldwide. In Malaysia, they cover an area of about 650,000 hectares.
Mangrove swamps are influenced by the tides- low and high. They are covered with water during high tides but the trees are not submerged completely. Mangrove swamps have trees that can tolerate the salty seawater, soil that has less oxygen, sea waves and land that is always changing its appearance.
Referring to the above extract, answer the following questions.
1. What are mangrove swamps?
2. What are the characteristics of mangrove swamps?
No comments:
Post a Comment