HR: 1340h
AN: B43C-1462    [Abstracts]
TI: Latitudinal Variation In Mangrove Height And Biomass in East Africa Using SRTM Elevation Data
AU: * Fatoyinbo, T E
EM: tef3p@virginia.edu
AF: University of Virginia, 291 McCormick Rd PO Box 400123, Charlottesville, Va 22904-4123, United States
AU: Simard, M
EM: marc.simard@jpl.nasa.gov
AF: Radar and Engineering Section, Caltech-Jet Propulsion Laboratory, MS 300-319D, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, CA 91109, United States
AU: Shugart, H H
EM: hhs@virginia.edu
AF: University of Virginia, 291 McCormick Rd PO Box 400123, Charlottesville, Va 22904-4123, United States
AB: One of the foundations of biogeography states that productivity and biomass are highest at the equator and decrease as latitude increases. This relationship was confirmed for mangrove ecosystems by Sanger and Snedaker in 1993, based on a review of mangrove biomass and litterfall studies. Recent advances in remote sensing technology have permitted the estimation of mangrove biomass using landcover maps and data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM). A test of this paradigm of mangrove ecology, using Mozambique as a case study, did not confirm the relationship between mangrove biomass and latitude. In this study, we produced a height and biomass map of mangrove forests of the whole Western Indian Ocean (WIO) region, which spans from Somalia in the North (12N) to South Africa in the S (28S), including Madagascar. Landsat ETM+ data was used to produce landcover maps and SRTM elevation data to produce height and biomass maps for the WIO region. Based on our results, we did not find a significant correlation between latitude and height/biomass in mangrove forests. Our results suggest that that freshwater input and type of geographical setting (lagoons, bays, deltas and open coast) are more important in determining mangrove height and biomass.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting