Abstract

YANEZ-ARANCIBIA, Alejandro; DAY, John W.; TWILLEY, Robert R.  and  DAY, Richard H.. Mangrove swamps: sentinel ecosystem in front of the climatic change, Gulf of Mexico. Madera bosques [online]. 2014, vol.20, n.spe, pp.39-75. ISSN 2448-7597.

Considering the challenge that the economic, social and ecological systems face -in order to know and mitigate the global climate change-, evidences of the functional structure of mangroves ecological system are presented revisiting the hypothesis presented by Yáñez-Arancibia et al. (1998), and revised latter by Yáñez-Arancibia et al. (2010): "the mangroves as a critical forest habitat of the coastal zone present accommodation responses to the environmental variability that induces global change playing an structural and functional role in the stability of the coastline, the persistence of habitats and biodiversity, the metabolism of the ecosystem, reducing risks and uncertainty for the sustainable development of the use of its resources". Recent evidences indicates that mangroves in the Gulf of Mexico follows this hypothesis and -as answer to climate change and its effects in the coastal zone- shows a consistent pattern of geographical distribution colonizing all over the northern coast of the Gulf, including the Atlantic coast of Florida Peninsula because of the opportunity of "global tropicalization of the Gulf of Mexico". Moreover, at present the four mangrove species in the Gulf of México are distributed in the Texas state U.S. We conclude that mangrove ecosystem is a "sentinel-ecosystem" in front of climate change impact in the Gulf of Mexico.

Keywords : climate change; sentinel-ecosystem; mangrove; tropicalization Gulf of Mexico.