Alongi Daniel M. - Tropical Marine Ecology

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 4
4. Chapter 5
5. Chapter 8
6. Chapter 9
7. Chapter 10
8. Chapter 11
9. Chapter 13
10. Chapter 14

1. Chapter 1
2. Chapter 2
3. Chapter 3
4. Chapter 4
5. Chapter 5
6. Chapter 6
7. Chapter 7
8. Chapter 8
9. Chapter 9
10. Chapter 10
11. Chapter 11
12. Chapter 12
13. Chapter 13
14. Chapter 14

DANIEL M. ALONGI

Tropical Coastal and Mangrove Consultants

Victoria, Australia

This edition first published 2022
2022 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

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Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Alongi, D. M. (Daniel M.) author.
Title: Tropical marine ecology / Daniel Michael Alongi.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : WileyBlackwell, 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021031560 (print) | LCCN 2021031561 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119568865 (cloth) | ISBN 9781119568889 (adobe pdf) | ISBN 9781119568926 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Marine ecology.
Classification: LCC QH541.5.S3 A453 2022 (print) | LCC QH541.5.S3 (ebook) | DDC 577.7dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031560
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021031561

Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Images: Chris & Monique Fallows/OceanwideImages.com, Mangrove photo courtesy of Dan Alongi

No realm on earth elicits thoughts of paradise more than the tropics. Such ideas often spring to mind when living through a snowy and icy winter. Many people living in temperate and boreal regions fulfil such dreams by holidaying in iconic places such as the islands of the Caribbean, the Great Barrier Reef, the Mediterranean and truly exotic locales such as Bali. When as a young man I left the United States to first visit Australia to work on the Great Barrier Reef, I truly felt that I had arrived at a tropical paradise. And the Great Barrier Reef is paradisiacal, being one of the greatest natural wonders on earth. Thousands of people the world over come to immerse themselves in its clear azure waters to observe the beauty and grandeur of many of its coral reefs. Also, if you think tropical rainforests are beautiful, then like me you can also enjoy the remarkable geometry and asymmetry of tropical mangrove forests.

But like all preconceived notions, dreams, and thoughts, the tropics also has a dark side, often subtle, but lurking in the shadows. Tropical waters give rise to cyclones, hurricanes, and typhoons, and the summer months can be unbearably hot and humid; closer to the equator, it is sticky, hot, and humid yearround. This reality can best be understood in the first instance by reading any of the classic tales of early explorers of the tropics, such as James Cook or the parttime pirate but intrepid explorer William Dampier or the great German scientist Alexander von Humboldt.

But as I will show in this book, the tropical marine realm is special in myriad ways and for many reasons from seas of higher latitude, in housing iconic habitats such as coral reefs, snow white beaches, crystal clear waters, mangrove forests, extensive and rich seagrass meadows and expansive river deltas, such as the exemplar, the Amazon. The reader will learn that from a global perspective it is in fact the great tropical rivers that have the most significant role to play in the cycles of nutrient and materials that help to foster life in tropical seas. These great conduits of mud, freshwater, and nutrients are the pumps that fuel the primary producers sustaining complex and beautifully intricate food webs. It is an irony that if it wasn't for these least photogenic of habitats, no (or exceedingly little) tropical marine life would exist. Even coral reefs have a tenuous, if important, functional connection to tropical rivers and estuaries; reefs are not quite as selfsufficient as we once thought, and many rely on connectivity with life in adjacent coastal muddy waters. In a nutshell, coral reefs are not divorced from the waters that bathe them. Nowadays this connection is unfortunately becoming more of a curse than a blessing; destructive human activities on land such as land clearing and overuse of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and herbicides are on the rise with concomitant increases in human population growth along tropical coastlines.