|Scientific Name:||Avicennia officinalis|
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Least Concern ver 3.1|
|Assessor/s:||Duke, N., Kathiresan, K., Salmo III, S.G., Fernando, E.S., Peras, J.R., Sukardjo, S. & Miyagi, T.|
|Reviewer/s:||Polidoro, B.A., Livingstone, S.R. & Carpenter, K.E. (Global Marine Species Assessment Coordinating Team)|
This species is widespread and common within its range. It is threatened by the loss of mangrove habitat throughout its range, primarily due to extraction and coastal development, and there has been an estimated 24% decline in mangrove area within this species range since 1980. Mangrove species are more at risk from coastal development and extraction at the extremes of their distribution, and are likely to be contracting in these areas more than in other areas. It is also likely that changes in climate due to global warming will further affect these parts of the range. Although there are overall range declines in many areas, they are not enough to reach any of the threatened category thresholds. This species is listed as Least Concern.
|Range Description:||This species is found in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Viet Nam, and southern Papua New Guinea.|
Native:Bangladesh; Brunei Darussalam; Cambodia; India; Indonesia; Malaysia; Myanmar; Papua New Guinea; Philippines; Singapore; Sri Lanka; Thailand; Viet Nam
|FAO Marine Fishing Areas:||
Indian Ocean – eastern; Indian Ocean – western; Pacific – northwest; Pacific – western central
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
This species is common within its range. In India, this species was found in 45% of 100 sampling sites (Kathiresan 2008).
This species can have different leaf morphologies that may be influenced by environmental factors. The different varieties have been indicated by preliminary genetic studies (Duke et al. 1998).
|Habitat and Ecology:||This species is found in the intermediate estuarine zone in the lower intertidal region. It is shade intolerant with a maximum porewater salinity of 63 ppt (Robertson and Alongi, 1992). This species grows on soft, recently consolidated mudbanks. This species is a tree or shrub that grows to 25 m, but is more often seen at 5-10 m. This species is a fast-growing species. It is a colonizing species on newly formed mudflats in SE Asia. (Terrados et al. 1997) and has a high tolerance of hypersaline conditions (Tomlinson 1986).|
This species is locally threatened by consumption by domestic livestock (goats, buffalo, cattle). Although local estimates are uncertain due to differing legislative definitions of what is a 'mangrove' and to the imprecision in determining mangrove area, current consensus estimates of mangrove loss in the last quarter-century report an approximately 24% decline in mangrove areas in countries within this species range since 1980 (FAO 2007).
All mangrove ecosystems occur within mean sea level and high tidal elevations, and have distinct species zonations that are controlled by the elevation of the substrate relative to mean sea level. This is because of associated variation in frequency of elevation, salinity and wave action (Duke et al. 1998). With rise in sea-level, the habitat requirements of each species will be disrupted, and species zones will suffer mortality at their present locations and re-establish at higher elevations in areas that were previously landward zones (Ellison 2005). If sea-level rise is a continued trend over this century, then there will be continued mortality and re-establishment of species zones. However, species that are easily dispersed and fast growing/ fast producing will cope better than those which are slower growing and slower to reproduce.
In addition, mangrove area is declining globally due to a number of localized threats. The main threat is habitat destruction and removal of mangrove areas. Reasons for removal include cleared for shrimp farms, agriculture, fish ponds, rice production and salt pans, and for the development of urban and industrial areas, road construction, coconut plantations, ports, airports, and tourist resorts. Other threats include pollution from sewage effluents, solid wastes, siltation, oil, and agricultural and urban runoff. Climate change is also thought to be a threat, particularly at the edges of a species range. Natural threats include cyclones, hurricane and tsunamis.
|Conservation Actions:||Conservation measures include planting, legal protection, protected areas, and sustainable use management. In Bangladesh and India this species is grown in plantations. This species range may include some marine and coastal protected areas. Continued monitoring and research is recommended, as well as the inclusion of mangrove areas in marine and coastal protected areas.|
Balasubramanian, T. and Khan, M.A. (Eds). 2002. Mangroves of India: State-of-the-art report. Envrironmental Information System Centre, Tamil Nadu, India.
Duke, N.C. 1991. A systematic revision of the mangrove genus Avicennia (Avicenniaceae) in Australasia. Australian Systematic Botany 4: 299-324.
Duke, N.C., Ball, M.C. and Ellison, J.C. 1998. Factors influencing biodiversity and distributional gradients in mangroves. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 7: 27-47.
Duke, N.C., Benzie, J.A.H., Goodall, J.A., Ballment, E.R. 1998. Genetic structure and evolution of species in the mangrove genus Avicennia (Avicenniaceae) in the Indo-West Pacific. Evolution 52: 1612-1626.
Ellison, J.C. 2005. Holocene palynology and sea-level change in two estuaries in Southern Irian Jaya. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 220: 291-309.
FAO. 2007. The World's Mangroves 1980-2005. FAO Forestry Paper 153. Forestry Department, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), Rome.
IUCN. 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (ver. 2010.2). Available at: http://www.iucnredlist.org. (Accessed: 29 June 2010).
Kathiresan, K. 2008. Biodiversity of Mangrove Ecosystems. Proceedings of Mangrove Workshop. GEER Foundation, Gujarat, India.
Robertson, A.I. and Alongi, D.M. 1992. Tropical Mangrove Ecosystems. American Geophysical Union, Washington, DC.
Spalding, M.D., Blasco, F. and Field, C.D. (eds). 1997. World Mangrove Atlas. The International Society for mangrove Ecosystems, Okinawa, Japan.
Terrados, J., Thampanya, U., Srichai, N., Kheowvongstri, P., Geertz-Hansen, O., Boromthanarath, S., Panapitukkul, N. and Duarte, C.M. 1997. The effect of increased sediment accretion on the survival and growth of Rhizophora apiculata seedlings. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 45: 697-701.
Tomlinson, P.B. 1986. The Botany of Mangroves. Cambridge University Press, New York.
|Citation:||Duke, N., Kathiresan, K., Salmo III, S.G., Fernando, E.S., Peras, J.R., Sukardjo, S. & Miyagi, T. 2010. Avicennia officinalis. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 20 May 2013.|
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