Recently, China has been affected by strong cold air, and many places in the country have successively experienced windy cooling weather, and local cooling can reach more than 14 ° C, which can be described as running into winter compared with previous years. The instability of this meteorological system is closely related to global warming, and carbon content is a topic that cannot be avoided when mentioning global warming, so today we will talk about the main force of carbon storage that has been neglected - mangroves.
Why are evergreen plants called "mangroves"?
Mangroves are evergreen shrubs or trees, and most mangroves grow in coastal waters and estuaries, but are also uncommon in inland waters. Mangroves are rare trees and are nationally protected tree species in China.
Some people will ask, since mangroves are evergreen plants, our common mangroves are all green forests, why is it called mangroves? This is the peculiarity of mangroves, which is a tree that changes color, because the bark of mangrove plants contains a substance, called tannic acid, which reaches a certain amount, and after oxidation, the tree will appear red, so it will be called mangrove.
Mangroves can be called "tree strong", first of all, they grow on the seashore, with deep roots and thick leaves, able to absorb the water in the seawater for themselves to thrive. Their strength is also manifested in their special breeding methods, which are rare in other plants. The seeds of the mangrove forest will germinate on the mother tree, grow into seedlings, automatically fall off, fall into the sea, insert sediment, and develop on their own, growing into a small tree. Even if it encounters the tide and is swept away by the sea, when the tide recedes, we will be pleasantly surprised to find that these seedlings can also settle down and grow elsewhere. This is one of the most wonderful features of mangroves. Mangroves are also divided into many varieties, there are about 50 kinds in the world, and there are more than 30 kinds in China.
The role of mangroves
According to the United Nations Blue Carbon: Assessment of the Role of Healthy Ocean Carbon Sequestration, more than half (55%) of the earth's biocarbon or green carbon capture is done by marine life, which means that the ocean is the largest carbon reservoir on the planet. Among these marine life is the mangroves we are talking about.
Mangroves grow in the shoals of the land-sea junction zone and are a special ecosystem for the transition from land to sea. Being strong and responsible is a prominent quality of mangroves. Mangroves have a resounding title, which is coast guard. Mangroves stand on the seashore, fixing berms, purifying seawater and air, just like the Hulk in the "reunion" has played a major role in protecting the lives and property of people along the coast.
In the mangroves, we can often see a variety of birds, such as herons, great egrets and seagulls; see some beautiful shellfish and snails, and even more adorable are hermit crabs that take shells and snail shells as their home. At high tide, we can also see many schools of brightly colored and cutely shaped shallow marine fish swimming in the mangroves, on the trees of mudflat fish and amphibious frogs. In some mangroves, people occasionally find wild boars and some small mammals, and these land animals are haunted here, making the mangroves truly a paradise for animals of the three realms of land, sea and air!
China's mangrove resources are very rich, which are distributed in Guangxi, Guangdong, Taiwan, Hainan, Fujian and the southern coast of Zhejiang are very distinctive. The mangrove resources of Guangxi Autonomous Region are the most resource-rich places.
The "Hulk" of Carbon Storage
Green plants on land absorb and fix carbon dioxide in the air through photosynthesis, releasing oxygen, called "green carbon". Our more common concentration of green carbon is in forests and grasslands. Our Earth is a blue Earth, and the processes, activities and mechanisms that use ocean activity and marine life to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, fix it and store it in the ocean are called "blue carbon". The mangroves and seagrass beds and coastal salt marshes we are talking about are called the "three major ecosystems of coastal blue carbon".
So what is the carbon sequestration mechanism of mangroves? Mangroves can be used as both the main force of green carbon and the main force of blue carbon. As a plant, mangroves, like forests and grasslands, have their leaves absorbing and fixing carbon dioxide in the air and releasing oxygen through photosynthesis, which plays the function of green carbon.
Mangroves, on the other hand, are mostly distributed in sedimentary coastal estuaries. In combination with upstream rivers and ocean tides, large amounts of exogenous carbon are alluvial downstream, to the coast and estuaries. This carbon is captured by mangroves along the coast and estuaries and accumulates layer by layer in the sediment where the intertwined roots of the mangroves are located. Due to periodic flooding, mangrove sediments that have been in an anaerobic state for a long time, as well as the slow decomposition rate of mangrove leaves and some decaying roots due to lack of oxygen, the carbon has been buried deeply for a long time, and the mangrove peat in some areas can even reach a depth of more than ten meters, which is a huge carbon storage reservoir.
With the introduction of "blue carbon", the protection of mangrove ecosystems that realize the main force of "blue carbon" has also received more and more attention, and the protection of mangrove forests in Zhuhai, Zhanjiang and Shenzhen in Guangdong, Dongzhai Port in Hainan, Shankou in Guangxi and Zhangjiangkou in Fujian are all well done.
What can we do to protect mangroves?
The coastal blue carbon ecosystem has a variety of functions and provides many benefits, but they are also the most endangered ecosystems on the planet. We must protect mangroves, first, consciously reduce the pollution of the marine environment, do not throw garbage anywhere, especially during the current epidemic period, the random discarding of masks has caused great harm to the marine ecology. Protect the beach environment and prevent garbage from being swept into the ocean, polluting the environment in which mangroves grow; second, do not randomly capture and protect marine life that grows in mangroves, and destroy the ecological balance of the ocean. In particular, if you see a beautiful conch or a beautiful shrimp or crab, you can't take it home; the third is to learn more about marine protection, expand your understanding of the ocean, and be a good advocate for the protection of the ocean; the fourth is to actively support and participate in marine conservation activities, such as planting mangroves, seagrasses and corals.
Text: Liu Yadan
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