Wildlife in and around mangroves
Fish, crabs, birds, monkeys, turtles and dugongs use mangroves directly or nearby.
Mangrove forests are a layered habitat.
- Roots and mud: crabs, mudskippers, snails and oysters.
- Creeks and channels: juvenile fish, prawns and sharks' pups.
- Canopy: herons, kingfishers, migratory waders, fruit bats, and in East Africa monkeys such as the Sykes' monkey.
- Adjacent seas: green turtles feed on seagrass beside mangroves; dugongs graze nearby meadows.
Many species are not "mangrove species" but depend on mangroves for part of their lives. That is why conservation planning treats mangroves, seagrass and reefs together as a connected system.
In Atlas. The Biodiversity module holds tagged sea-turtle tracks from the Kenyan coast. The planned species sources (GBIF, OBIS and the IUCN Red List) will add occurrence records and threatened-species ranges.
Related reading
More in Knowledge Base
- Mangrove zonation: why different species grow in bands
- Blue carbon projects and carbon markets
- Organisations and community involvement in carbon projects
- Mangroves in Africa: the big picture
- Community-led mangrove management
- East African coastal forests
- West and Central African mangroves
- What data is coming next
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