the side of the Waterway away from fre- 

 quent human access fared better than 

 those near more frequented areas. Some 

 of the losses at more urbanized sites 

 resulted from seedlings being trampled 

 by fishermen, knocked over by small 

 boats, and in some cases apparently 

 pulled up. 



Teas et al. (1975) reported on a 

 low energy mangrove planting site on the 

 west coast of Florida at Grassy Point in 

 the Port Charlotte area. At this loca- 

 tion, approximately 60,000 red mangrove 

 propagules were planted in 1974. A por- 

 tion of this experiment is shown in Fig- 

 ure 17. An estimated 85% to 90% survived 

 for 1 yr; however, checks at 2.5 yr 

 (Teas and Jurgens, unpublished) showed 

 that many of the seedlings planted low 

 in the tidal range were being lost be- 

 cause of Sphaeroma damage. 



Red, black, and white mangroves 

 were transplanted to a high energy site 

 in Biscayne Bay, on the north side of 

 the Julia Tuttle Causeway, and after 10 

 mo only 7 of the original 320 plants 

 survived; after 24 mo, none was alive. 

 Forty-seven small red, black, and white 

 mangrove trees were transplanted from 

 nature into a freshwater pool at the 

 University of Miami campus (Figure 18), 

 and 47% were surviving after 2 yr (Teas 

 1977). Most of the fosses were in the 

 first few weeks. 



At a low energy canal side site near 

 Miami, 88 pot-grown red, black, and 

 white mangroves up to 3.6 m (12 ft) tall 

 were planted. The survival rate after 6 

 mo was 100% (Teas 1977). 



Kinch (1975) summarized several 

 years of experiments on mangrove trans- 

 planting to a spoil island in Roberts 

 Bay at Marco, Florida (Figure 19). After 

 3 yr, only 15.7% of the plants survived. 

 This low survival rate may have been 

 caused at least partly by subsidence of 

 the soft fill used in forming the is- 

 land. 



Hannan (1975) transplanted 4-yr or 

 older red mangroves in the Jensen Beach 

 area on the east coast of Florida. He 

 obtained good survival, i.e., 85% to 

 100% at 13 mo, of root-balled plants 

 transplanted at or above the mid-tide 

 range. 



Teas (1977) used a tree crane to 

 transplant 14 black and white mangroves 

 up to 6m (20 ft) tall (Fioure 20) that 



had been root-pruned several months 

 earlier and top-pruned at the time of 

 transplanting. After 6 mo none sur- 

 vived. The losses probably resulted from 

 improper handling in transplanting, 

 since root-pruning and top-pruning alone 

 do not kill trees of this size. 



THE MANGROVE SWAMP ECOSYSTEM 



Mangroves, growing where tempera- 

 ture, water, salinity regime, substrate, 

 mineral nutrient supply, and other fac- 

 tors are fairly optimal, form well- 

 developed forests that are botanical ly 

 complex. As Macnae (1968) has detailed 

 for Indo-Pacific mangrove forests, many 

 animal species are found living in or 

 dependent on the mangroves. The diver- 

 sity of mangroves inhabitants in the 

 Caribbean is indicated, for example, by 

 lists of animals found in mangroves of 

 Puerto Rico (Cerame-Vivas 1974), Trini- 

 dad (Bacon 1970), and south Florida 

 (Tabb et al. 1962; Odum and Heald 1972; 

 Carter et al. 1973). Birds, fish, in- 

 vertebrates, and mammals inhabiting man- 

 groves in south Florida were listed by 

 Simberloff and Wilson (1969), Breitwisch 

 (1976), de Sylva (1976), Odell (1976), 

 Owre (1976), and Voss (1976). Mangrove 

 detritus-food web relationships have 

 been described by several writers 

 (Macnae 1968; Odum and Heald 1972). 

 Odum and de la Cruz (1967) reported on 

 the role of Spartina detritus in a 

 Georgia salt marsh estuarine ecosystem. 



There appear to be special problems 

 associated with the establishment of 

 mangroves in unvegetated shoreline areas 

 or in former mangrove areas that have 

 become dominated by other plants. For 

 example, Macnae (1968) points out that 

 clear-cut mangrove forests along the 

 Gulf of Thailand near Bangkok did not 

 revegetate with mangroves. Also, the 

 herbicide-killed mangrove forests on the 

 Saigon River delta were very slow to be- 

 come revegetated long after significant 

 concentrations of herbicide had disap- 

 peared from the soil (Lang 1974) (Figure 

 21). In Vietnam, erosion of the exposed 

 soil and loss of mineral elements may 

 have been involved (Lang 1974). Areas 

 near Flamingo in Everglades National 

 Park, where the mangroves were killed by 

 a hurricane in 1965, became vegetated 



83 



