Temporal mangrove dynamics in relation to coastal development in Pacific Panama
Section snippets
Study site
The discontinuous fringing mangrove of Punta Mala Bay, Panama City within the Bay of Panama (08°56′45″N, 079°33′10″W) was the study site in this investigation. Punta Mala Bay is approximately 8.3 ha in size and is located to the west of the city, towards the entrance to the Panama Canal. The Gulf of Panama is characterised by wet and dry seasons, with the wet season lasting from May to December (average monthly rainfall 350 mm) and the dry season occurs between January and April (Glynn, 1972).
Forest structure in plots surveyed
A summary of adult and seedling parameters derived from the field data is given in Table 1. All plots contained adults, saplings and seedlings. Plot 3 had the greatest number of stems over 1 m high (adults plus saplings =201), although this was closely followed by plot 1, which had 186 stems. Additionally plot 1 also has the greatest stand basal area of 0.049 m2 in comparison to a slightly lower value of 0.039 m2 in plot 3. The lowest number of stems over 1 m was in plot 5, which also had the
Discussion
One of the most notable factors to emerge from this study is the dominance in Punta Mala Bay of L. racemosa with A. germinans and R. mangle present in small numbers. This is contrary to Jiménez (1994) who stated that this species was not commonly found on the Pacific coast of Panama. Results presented here and observations in Coiba Island located in western Pacific Panama (H. Guzman 2002, pers. obs) show that L. racemosa can colonise this area when conditions are suitable. This dominance is not
Conclusions
This study showed the dominance of L. racemosa at all intertidal levels of Pacific Panama, in contradiction to some previous studies on the distribution of this species. The value of aerial photography as a means to evaluate coverage by mangrove and spatial vegetation dynamics over time was demonstrated. The use of historic aerial photography in conjunction with forest structure data indicated that mangrove was undergoing normal rejuvenation and is recovering naturally from the intense coastal
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all those at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama for their help during this project, especially Carlos Guevara and Franklin Guerra who assisted with fieldwork. Subsistence and travel costs for S. Benfield were funded by a NERC Studentship, Heriot-Watt University's Alumni Fund and an internship from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. Additionally, we would like to thank the constructive points of the two anonymous reviewers that helped to improve
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